WWII Ration Recipes: Thanksgiving Leftovers
Wartime ideas for holiday leftovers of turkey, ham, cranberry sauce, and sweet potatoes.
In my opinion, one of the best things about Thanksgiving are the leftovers. We traveled to visit family in Indiana for an early Thanksgiving, but weren’t able to bring back many leftovers. So, we made our own Thanksgiving dinner for the big day and now we have plenty of yummy things to eat for days. Hooray!
Of course, the big topic after the holiday feast is what to do with the leftovers and there are a lot of great ideas out there. For this special post, I turned to some wartime-era cookbooks to see what kinds of ideas they had.
Turkey Leftovers
I cracked open The U.S. Regional Cook Book (1939) because it’s sitting on my desk right now. lol I found this classic recipe which looks really promising.
The Lily Wallace New American Cook Book (1945) had a few interesting sandwich ideas:
Chopped, cooked ham mixed with chopped cooked turkey or chicken, salt, pepper, and mayonnaise
Minced, cooked poultry mixed with chopped nut meats, chopped green pepper, salt, paprika, and mayonnaise
Chopped cooked chicken (or turkey), diced celery, chopped pimiento, chopped ripe olives, grated onion, salt, pepper, and mayonnaise
And here’s an early version of the ever popular “Thanksgiving Leftover Sandwich.”
Ham Leftovers
Our family typically has ham for Christmas, but I’ve talked to several people who include ham for their Thanksgiving dinner. And for those in wartime who couldn’t get turkey, ham was a great stand-in. Ham is such a versatile, tasty meat, there are infinite ways in how to use it. Here are a few recipes I’ve tried over the years.
Ten years ago I tried this recipe from Grandma’s Wartime Kitchen for Ham Turnovers. They were delicious!
Back in 2019, I was teaching a homeschool cooking class on wartime recipes. We tried a recipe for Hot Ham Rolls from the tiny cookbook 120 Wartime Meat Recipes. They were pretty delicious, especially if served with a cheese sauce. Be sure to warn those at the dinner table, though. They look an awful lot like cinnamon rolls which would be a rude awakening. Haha! (Check out the above link to see what they look like and you’ll understand.)
This recipe for Cheese and Ham Soufflé was absolutely delicious and easier than I thought it would be. I think about it often. It comes from The Victory Meal Planner (1942). It took me an hour to hunt this recipe down. I remembered making it a long time ago, but couldn’t find it anywhere in my files. Definitely worth the time to find it! I hope you try this one.
Cranberry Leftovers
Cranberry Sauce is such an iconic staple on the American Thanksgiving table. A lot of people enjoy various relish recipes, but I grew up with the good, ol’ log of cranberry sauce sliced into rounds. Americans have been enjoying The Log since it was invented in 1941. Keep your eyes peeled for a special cranberry post I’m planning soon!
Here’s an amazing-looking recipe for Cranberry Sponge Pudding. It’s a warm, lemon sponge spread with cranberry sauce. Yes, please! It comes from The Rumford Complete Cookbook (1936).
Here are some fun ideas for using jellied cranberry sauce (i.e. from the can) in your baking. They come from Cape Cod’s Famous Cranberry Recipes (1941) which is a favorite cookbook of mine. Despite what you may think, the jellied cranberry sauce does not melt. I was super surprised by this. lol It’s actually a cool property of the sauce, because it’s fairly sturdy for whatever batter you fold it into. And then it stays there during baking. Fascinating!
I’ve tried these Cranberry Molasses Cookies with a cube of jellied cranberry sauce pressed into them. They were surprisingly tasty!
Sweet Potato Leftovers
(Update: I forgot to include this section in my original post!)
I don’t feel like the Thanksgiving meal would be complete without sweet potatoes, but sadly the rest of my family doesn’t agree. It doesn’t stop me from putting them on the table, though. Ha!
I love the above image, don’t you? Sweet potatoes were a very thrifty, filling vegetable in wartime, so this November article was very timely and practical. The article also includes an interesting recipe for Meat and Sweet Potato Pie that uses all kinds of leftovers. Turkey would be a great stand in for the meat.
This article, also from Florida, includes all kinds of sweet potato recipes!
I’ve got a few more sweet potato recipes in my History: Preserved blog archives.
Sweet Potato Stuffing (This has the option of adding in sausage. You can use leftover rolls for the bread crumbs!)
And if you’d like to dress up your sweet potatoes that haven’t been mashed, here’s this unconventional recipe I made over on Instagram for Lemon Sweet Potatoes which were quite good! Scroll through the photos to find the recipe.
The Victory Handbook from Waynesboro, PA (where I volunteer at a museum!) has a recipe for Stewed Pork with Sweet Potatoes. Intriguing!
And finally, here’s a recipe for Sweet Potato Ham Puffs from one of my favorite wartime cookbooks.
I hope you enjoy all of your Thanksgiving feast leftovers! Let me know if any of these recipes inspire you to give them a try. And please share your favorite ways to use Thanksgiving leftovers in the comments. I’d love to read about them all. The more inspiration going around the better!
If you’ve enjoyed this content, please consider becoming a paid subscriber which helps me run my podcast and write these posts. Subscriptions to my Substack also make great gifts!