There are lots of variations of the day after Thanksgiving sandwich, I bring you the day after Thanksgiving salad. The only real recipe below is for the cranberry dressing, as it would taste good on whatever salad you can throw together, but I did list what I used for the salad pictured. Granted it will only make use of two of the leftovers you have overcrowding your fridge, but no one says you can't eat it with sides of stuffing and mashed potatoes.
When I was dating my now husband and offered to cook him dinner the first time it was like I suddenly forgot how to use a microwave let alone cook a complete meal. I had no idea what to make. (Incidentally I have a similar problem whenever we have people over for dinner - total blank on what to cook). In one of our conversations he had mentioned a cranberry salad dressing that he had eaten at a restaurant recently that was really good. Once I decided on what to make for the main course, I decided I needed to make a cranberry vinaigrette to go with the salad. I found a recipe that looked good on Epicurious, but it called for fresh or frozen cranberries and it was the end of August and there were no fresh cranberries to be found. I searched for frozen at every store in my area and couldn't find those either. The logical thing to do would have been to make another dressing, but I'm sure my roommate at the time could attest to the fact that I was not logical while planning this dinner.
The comments on the recipe came to my rescue, with someone mentioning that they had used whole berry cranberry sauce and just left out the sugar. I tried it and it worked, so I made the dressing for my then boyfriend, and three months later I was engaged. I may be leaving out a few steps there, but he did say it tasted a lot like the one he had at the restaurant. I have since made the dressing with fresh cranberries and honestly we think it's just as good with cranberry sauce. If you want to go the fresh/frozen cranberry route though sub the cranberry sauce with 1/4 cup cranberries and 1 tablespoon sugar and give them a quick pulse in the blender or food processor before adding the rest of the ingredients, then proceed from there. I still make it both ways depending on what I have on hand.
For the salad pictured in this post, top mixed greens with several slices of leftover turkey, sprinkle with toasted pecans, dried cranberries, and Gorgonzola cheese, then serve with the Cranberry Vinaigrette recipe below.
Cranberry Vinaigrette
Slightly Adapted from Epicurious
1/4 cup whole berry cranberry sauce
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon finely chopped red onion
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
3/4 cup vegetable oil
salt and pepper
Add cranberry sauce, vinegar, red onion and Dijon mustard to a food processor or blender. Pulse several times to combine ingredients. With machine running, slowly drizzle in vegetable oil until it is all blended. Pour into a bowl and stir in salt and pepper to taste, I usually use just a pinch of salt and a bit more fresh ground pepper. Cover and refrigerate for at least several hours to help flavors blend together. This makes a thick, creamy vinaigrette, so you'll need to stir and let come to room temperature before serving.
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