“Live, from Leftover Land!” Wouldn’t that be a fun name for a game show featuring contestants presenting their most creative effort with post-Thanksgiving overflow? At our house, we tend to go all out on Thanksgiving, regardless of whether we have a houseful or a handful of guests. This year, it was the latter, but that did not stop us from cooking a 17-pound bird. It was my year for the turkey, and I broke one of my own cardinal rules in my decision to try a new method, dry brining. My leap of faith paid off, big time, with a juicy, extremely flavorful bird. And now, there’s a bunch left over.

---

No matter who cooks the turkey (we alternate years, as part of our pre-marital agreement), the question of how to use the leftovers is always a big one at our house. I adore a good turkey sandwich on homemade bread, but I hardly ever have fresh bread at Thanksgiving, which probably seems strange to anyone who knows my love for sourdough. Despite my best intentions, I did not even save enough time to make the soft dinner rolls that I thought would be so perfect for miniature turkey sandwiches. But I am working today on a loaf of my favorite sourdough sandwich bread to remedy that situation. And Les is pitching in, too. He has all the ingredients he needs for one of his favorite Thanksgiving leftovers—a turkey shepherd’s pie, which also makes excellent use of our leftover garlic mashed potatoes (another of his recipes, and one that we don’t ever seem to make in small quantity). I intend to use up more of the leftover bird in some spicy turkey enchiladas, using handmade corn tortillas, at some point over the next two days before the leftover police come knocking. Food safety experts recommend using the leftovers within a few days, so time’s a ticking and I’ll be on top of it.

In the meantime, we brainstormed ways to bring all the favored flavors of Thanksgiving to a pizza, and this was our result—a deep-dish crust that tastes like sage and onion dressing, with sausage, turkey, sweet potatoes and green bean casserole, all topped off with a quick drizzle of spiced cranberry mayonnaise. The best thing about this pizza (other than the fact we enjoyed it with friends we haven’t spent quality, sit-down time with since before COVID began), was that prep was minimal. Everything was already done on Thanksgiving itself, so it gave us more time to relax over cocktails and simply enjoy the company.

---

If you are struggling with leftovers, give this a try, even if your leftovers look different from ours. This pizza does not rely on traditional Italian ingredients, so you can skip the mozzarella. We used shredded gouda cheese in the base of the pizza, then arranged the other toppings in a way that afforded us a good, balanced bite in every thick, delicious slice.

The holidays are coming at me fast this year, as Hanukkah began last evening and that can only mean one thing. Latkes! Stay tuned…

---

Ingredients

1 batch deep dish pizza dough* (see notes)

8 oz. gouda cheese, shredded

1/2 lb. bulk breakfast sausage, crumbled and cooked just until no longer pink

3 stalks celery, cleaned and chopped

1/2 sweet onion or leek, trimmed and chopped

1 generous cup leftover cooked turkey (we used mostly dark meat)

3 spinach balls, torn into bite-sized pieces

A few dollops of leftover garlic mashed potatoes

1 generous cup roasted sweet potato cubes

1 cup cut green beans, drenched in vegan mushroom gravy

Several spoonfuls leftover turkey gravy

1 handful French-fried crispy onions

Cranberry mayo:

Combine 1/2 cup leftover cranberry sauce and 3 Tbsp. mayonnaise in a smoothie blender. Or flip the ratio if you want it creamier and less tangy. What you don’t use on the pizza will be fantastic on sandwiches!

---

*Notes

For the dough this time, I used the basic recipe from my post for Chicago-Style Deep-Dish Pizza, but with a few Thanksgiving flavor additions—I added a teaspoon Bell’s seasoning (similar to poultry seasoning) to the flour ingredients and kneaded in about two tablespoons re-hydrated minced onion. These simple adjustments gave us a crust that had all the flavors of Thanksgiving stuffing, a great base for our pizza.

---

Instructions

Preheat oven to 450° F with rack in center position of the oven.

Stretch the risen dough into a 14-inch deep dish pan. If it springs back too much, cover and rest it 15 minutes, then proceed.

Scatter cheese over the entire bottom of the dough, then layer on the sausage, celery and onions. Follow that with a scattering of leftover turkey, sweet potatoes and a few dollops of leftover mashed potatoes. Top it off with the green bean casserole mixture and a few spoons of turkey gravy here and there.

Bake for 25 minutes, then sprinkle the fried onions on top and bake 10 minutes more. Allow the pizza to rest for 10 minutes before transferring to a flat pizza pan and slicing. Drizzle with the cranberry mayonnaise just before serving.

---