Thanksgiving Casserole
This easy Thanksgiving Casserole has all of the flavors of Thanksgiving dinner together in one easy dish! Make the most of your leftovers by putting together this freezer meal – then you can enjoy Thanksgiving dinner any time you’d like, without all the work!
Thanksgiving Casserole
This Thanksgiving Casserole freezer meal is a very easy dish to put together, and it uses all of your leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner. And it does have all the flavors of that dinner together in one dish.
It’s basically a mash-up of several Thanksgiving leftover recipes. I wanted to try to get the best of all them, in one easy freezer meal.
We love Thanksgiving leftovers at my house and I always make sure to have plenty, because I figure if I’m going to go through all that work, why not make as much as I can so we can enjoy it for as long as possible. Right? I mean, it’s basically the same amount of work to roast a 10 lb turkey as it is a 24 lb turkey. And it’s only a few more minutes of potato peeling to make a triple batch of mashed potatoes as it is a single batch.
But realistically, one can only eat Thanksgiving leftovers for lunch and dinner for so many days in a row before it does tend to lose its novelty. And I hate throwing away leftovers. So I created this recipe for Thanksgiving Casserole from a couple of different ideas for using up Thanksgiving leftovers.
The idea is to eat your fill of Thanksgiving leftovers after the big meal, but then when you’re ready to move on, don’t throw away whatever is left, but use it in a freezer meal so a month or two from now, you can enjoy Thanksgiving dinner flavors all over again! But this time without all the work.
It will keep nicely in the freezer for several months, but it’s such a great meal I doubt it will take that long before you’re ready to pull it out and serve it!
And if you find you don’t have any leftover mashed potatoes, you can always make up some of my Instant Pot Garlic Herb Mashed Potatoes to use for this!
Thanksgiving Casserole
INGREDIENTS
- 5 cups shredded cooked turkey light or dark meat
- 1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1 can green beans drained
- 1/2 onion finely diced
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp pepper
- 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
- 4 cups prepared mashed potatoes
- 1 pkg stuffing mix prepared (or about 4 cups leftover stuffing)
INSTRUCTIONS
- Spray 9x13 baking dish or aluminum pan lightly with cooking spray. Spread shredded turkey in bottom of dish.
- In medium-sized bowl, combine soup, sour cream, green beans, onion, salt and pepper. Spread mixture evenly over shredded turkey.
- Sprinkle shredded cheese over soup mixture.
- Spread mashed potatoes over cheese layer. (You may need to heat up the potatoes or thin them with a little bit of milk to make them spread easier.)
- Top with a layer of prepared stuffing mix or leftover stuffing.
- Cover with aluminum foil or lid. Label and date, then place in freezer.
To reheat from thawed (preferred method):
- Remove casserole from freezer and place in refrigerator for about 24 hours to thaw. Once thawed, bake uncovered at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 35-40 minutes until bubbly and topping is lightly browned.
- To reheat from frozen:Bake COVERED at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 1 hour. Then uncover and bake for an additional 35-40 minutes until bubbly and topping is lightly browned.
- Garnish with crushed fresh thyme or a dollop of cranberry sauce!
Made this ahead of time. Froze it. Baked it as instructed from a frozen state. 1.5 hrs later, we are still waiting for it to be reheated all the way through! After 40 minutes, the center was still frozen. Was it supposed to be defrosted before baking? Did I miss something of the instructions above?
Oh my goodness, I am SO sorry! I looked at the recipe and realized that when I converted over to the new recipe cards recently it didn’t copy over all of the instructions! I am so, so sorry! Yes, the instructions that were posted were for baking from thawed. And the instructions for baking from frozen were gone completely! I am heartbroken that I ruined this meal for you! 🙁
How long would you be able to keep this in the freezer? It’s only the two of us here so I figured I’d save a small portion for an easy frozen meal prep later!
For best quality, 3 months is the average freezer “best by” for casseroles like this.
Can leftover gravy be substituted for the soup?
Hmm, that’s an interesting question! The taste/flavor will change a bit, as will the consistency a bit. My only concern is that gravy is usually quite a bit thinner than the unmixed condensed soup, so I’m worried it could make that layer watery…