Mashed's Exclusive Survey Uncovered The Best Way To Eat Thanksgiving Leftovers

It's November, and food is on the brain. The culinarily-minded are sharpening their knives, planning their oven usage, and preparing their mise en place for this festive season of eating. Thanksgiving favorites — turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes — are synonymous with a season that's rooted in tradition, according to Restaurant Clicks. It can also be rooted in at least a little bit of excess: When Thursday, November 24 rolls around, and we join with family and friends to feast on these traditional foods, it can be difficult to reckon with the fact that this sacred meal will likely continue into the next week.

One 20-pound turkey can feed roughly 14 people, per Leigh Valley Live. Even if you have 14 or more people at your gathering, the turkey only accounts for one portion of the meal, which means leftovers are inevitable. Grist reported that Americans waste about 200 million pounds of turkey, 48 million pounds of sweet potatoes, and 45 million pounds of green beans each year during this holiday.

The Tupperware containers full of leftover meat and casserole that accumulate in our refrigerators at this time of year may be less appealing than the bountiful spread that first appeared on the Thanksgiving table. But a Mashed exclusive survey has revealed the best way to repurpose what remains from your holiday meal.

If you're bored just thinking about how you're going to jazz up your leftovers from Thanksgiving, the results of a Mashed exclusive survey may help you figure out how to take down that remaining turkey and stuffing. According to the survey, the most popular way to repurpose leftovers is through engineering a Thanksgiving sandwich. Of the 622 people surveyed, 37.14% reported that the sandwich reigns supreme.

The Thanksgiving leftovers sandwich can even outshine the holiday meal itself, according to NY Times Cooking. And Woman's Day suggests that the festive flavors of Thanksgiving dishes are complimentary when combined into a sandwich, creating the perfect bite.

If the sandwich doesn't get your mouth watering, there are other dishes to create with your Thanksgiving leftovers. You don't even have to do any extra cooking or creative brainstorming if you don't want to — almost 26% of people said their first choice would be to re-enact the Thanksgiving meal all over again. The third most popular option, selected by 17.68% of survey participants, was to mix all the remaining dishes into one composite dish. Hey, whatever helps get all that Tupperware out of your fridge.