I will have to remember to republish this around the holidays for the rest of you, but for us, it’s perfect timing. We’re butchering turkeys this weekend if the weather holds. Of course we’re gluten free now, and rarely have any GF bread on hand, so I’d be more likely to put this on salad than anything else.  We actually love this on salad with a little homemade balsamic vinaigrette on it. YUM!

Wondering what to do with those turkey leftovers after the holiday this week? Of course you can make soup, but we like to make what I call “greener” turkey salad sandwiches. Here is a rough recipe for the ‘salad’ to go into the sandwiches.  It’s also different from your usual just slice of turkey on bread with mayo. If you have some cranberry sauce, a certain teenage member of my household has been known to add some of that to top it off, but I can’t vouch for its tastiness to a normal adult palette!

Greener Turkey (or Tuna!) Salad

This is always a hit at our house. You give a tuna salad sandwich to the little guy, and he opens the bread, and just eats the ‘salad’ from the inside and wants more.

Chopped celery
Chopped green onions (or regular onions, though dice finely and don’t use as many if they are strong!)
Chopped dill pickles
Finely chopped romaine or green leaf lettuce
Finely chopped parsley
Small bit of shredded Swiss (or cheddar) cheese
Depending what you have on hand, diced or shredded carrots, cucumber, green pepper, spinach, kale, etc.
Turkey or tuna
Bread or lettuce

I use roughly 2 to 1 veggies to turkey (or tuna).  Just start chopping and adding to a bowl until you have a nice bowl of full of veggies.

Chop turkey into small cubes or shred. If using tuna, I prefer white albacore from Costco, but you can use whatever you have on hand, and could even use canned salmon too—cilantro would be great with salmon as an add-in.

Add enough mayonnaise to hold the mixture together slightly. You really don’t need a huge amount. You can use light mayo if you must, but I find the flavor just not right, and would rather use less regular mayo than go light!

Scoop on whole grain bread. If you’ve used pickles, you won’t need any extra salt, but a bit of pepper is nice.

You could also serve as a wrap in a whole-wheat tortilla, serve over lettuce for a salad, or make roll-ups with romaine or butter lettuce. Also tasty is to toast your bread, or to leave out the cheese and sprinkle it on top instead, then run it under the broiler until melted.