This is my favorite way to repurpose leftover Thanksgiving turkey! I used this slider recipe as a guide (mostly for oven temperature and cook time), but we ended up modifying the recipe to make it work for our ingredients. There are so many ways to make Thanksgiving leftover sliders depending on what sides you have available and what flavors you like — I went a little French-inspired with this variation and they really turned out yummy! We can’t wait to recreate this recipe again soon!!!
This was my first time cooking a holiday meal by myself in a LONG time and I am still pretty proud of how everything turned out! I used Ina Garten’s Herb-Roasted Turkey Breast recipe (a favorite of mine) and it yielded a LOT of turkey! 😅 Unfortunately, due to cutting the other Thanksgiving recipes in half (since it was just the two of us this year) we quickly ran out of sides to eat with the turkey! Admittedly, we were getting a bit bored with the meal anyway, so it was time to switch it up!
I shredded what was left of the turkey and assessed the contents of my refrigerator to see what other ingredients I had to work with.
Thankfully, we had two types of mustard — regular Dijon and Country Dijon. I would have used only one type (Country Dijon, which is my fave) on the whole dish, but each jar was fairly low so I needed to utilize both to complete the recipe. I found the rest of a block of Gruyère cheese from my potato fennel gratin dish and I discovered that I also had a few herbs left from the turkey recipe so I harvested some thyme leaves to add to the top of the sandwiches.
Now, let’s make some sliders!
I sliced a 12-pack of Hawaiian rolls in half (making two slabs) and spread the regular Dijon mustard on both sides of the bread;
Placed the bottom half of the sliders in a baking dish (no dish-coating necessary) and then heaped a generous amount of shredded turkey on top;
Covered the turkey in grated Gruyère cheese (grating the cheese makes for easier distribution & melting);
Replaced the top of the Hawaiian rolls;
Melted some butter and mixed it with some Country Dijon mustard which was then brushed over the top of the sliders before finishing them off with a sprinkling of cracked black pepper and the fresh thyme leaves on top.
Popped them in the oven at 350°F for 20 min (it took a few minutes longer than the original recipe called for because the turkey was so chilled from being in the refrigerator).
The sliders came out so nice and toasty! The mustard-butter made a delicious “crust” on top, the cheese was gooey, and the thyme really made them taste extra “Thanksgiving-y”. You could also use some gravy as a dip (if you have any left 😉)!
My husband and I were so happy with how these turned out that we already can’t wait to eat the rest of the batch!
Enjoy, friends!
xx, Natalie
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