Roasted Turkey and Blue Cheese Crostini Recipe

I don’t know about you but I can never get enough turkey around the holiday season. I will roast an entire turkey just so that I can have my own leftovers since I’m usually not the one hosting the big feast. And while I’m all for the traditional leftover turkey sandwich, I was looking for some new ideas to use up my Thanksgiving leftovers this year.

While doing some research for this post I came across a lot of the same things: turkey pot pie, turkey shepherd’s pie, turkey soup, etc. I wanted to take my leftovers to an all new level, a more gourmet leftover recipe. Who says that leftovers have to be basic?

This recipe is great on its own to serve for a lunch or dinner Thanksgiving snack, but if you’re like me and have multiple Thanksgiving feasts throughout the week, I’m serving this open-faced sandwich as an appetizer for another Thanksgiving meal that I have to attend this upcoming weekend. It would also be a good appetizer to serve at an upcoming Christmas or other holiday meal.

So let’s go ahead and deconstruct this recipe. I used a fresh baguette and toasted each slice with a bit of olive oil. I then used up some cranberry mango chutney that I had prepared for my main Thanksgiving meal this past week. I suggest using a thicker cranberry chutney or sauce for this recipe as a traditional cranberry sauce may not offer enough ‘stick’ to hold all of the other ingredients on the sandwich.

Thinly slice some leftover turkey and layer that on top of the cranberry and top with a few sprigs of arugula. Here’s where things get interesting: blue cheese. I topped off my sandwiches with Litehouse Simply Artisan Blue Cheese Crumbles to bring the flavor to an all new level. This cheese is rich and creamy and a perfect complement to the turkey and cranberry. Why should anyone treat leftovers as a boring, bland food? I’m saying you should treat them as gourmet as any other food you serve on Thanksgiving Day. What are some of your favorite gourmet uses for Thanksgiving leftovers?