Happy Day-After-Thanksgiving!  I hope you all had a great holiday.  Mine was just lovely and it was so special to spend the day with my girls who are home from college in the kitchen with me.  The weather was crazy warm and my husband and I were able to enjoy a beautiful beach walk while the apple pies were in the oven.

Now, what to do with all those leftovers?!  Some people (like my husband) are perfectly happy eating Thanksgiving leftovers in the same way they were served on Thanksgiving.  Other people (like me) like the leftovers transformed into something else.    Turkey is the easiest food to work with since you can basically treat it like chicken.   And whatever you won’t eat by Sunday can be frozen for soup next month.

I put together this salad with a few of my favorite ingredients (dates, roasted red peppers, rice) and combined them with cooked turkey for a fabulous and flavorful salad with Middle Eastern flavors — very different from last night’s dinner.  This will make for a light, but hearty lunch meal or even dinner.  If you don’t have the fresh herbs, don’t worry about it.

I also start my turkey stock first thing Friday morning, and then turkey and barley soup will be on the menu Saturday.  Enjoy the rest of the weekend!

Leftover Turkey and Rice Middle Eastern Salad Recipe

Pamela

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Servings 6

Ingredients

  

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• 2 cups leftover turkey meat sliced or diced
• For the dressing:
• 3 Tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 2 Tablespoons tahini I used raw
• 4 Tablespoons unrefined cold-pressed extra-virgin olive oil
• ¾ teaspoon sea salt
• freshly ground black pepper to taste
• ¼ cup fresh dill fronds
• 2 Tablespoons fresh mint leaves
• 1 cup brown rice cooked according to package directions and cooled (or use less rice, if desired. In this image, I used about 1 cup cooked rice)
• 6 cups lightly packed baby spinach leaves about 3 ounces
• 6 Medjool dates pitted and chopped
• ½ cup pitted green olives sliced lengthwise
• ¼ cup pine nuts toasted
• 6 ounces diced fire-roasted red peppers about 1 cup

Instructions

 

• To make dressing, add all ingredients to a blender and blend until combined.
• Place all of the ingredients in a large serving bowl and toss with dressing.

Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!