If Thanksgiving was held at your house, you likely have a ton of leftovers taking over your fridge.  While Thanksgiving foods are undeniably delicious, you don’t necessarily want to eat Thanksgiving dinner every night for a week.  That means it’s time to get creative!

I don’t normally include meats in my grilled cheese sandwiches.  I feel like once you start adding too many ingredients it veers too close to panini territory (which are yummy but their own thing).  However, in an effort to use up Thanksgiving leftovers I made an exception this time.  I contemplated adding stuffing as well, but feared it would be too bready, and also would take too long to warm up in the middle, and result in burnt bread.

 Leftovers utilized: turkey, cranberry sauce

Cranberry Turkey Grilled Cheese:

• 2 slices bread of choice (though a heartier bread like whole wheat or multigrain might be better)
• ½ cup shredded cheese (I used cheddar, but swiss would be good too)
• Sliced turkey (I can’t really say how much since I don’t know how big your bread and turkey slices are…but enough for equal turkey distribution throughout the sandwich)
• 1/3 cup cranberry sauce
• 2 tbsp softened or whipped butter

Spread the butter on the outsides of your bread.  Construction is actually kind of important for this sandwich if you want to be able to flip it easily.  Place first slice of bread butter side down on a skillet over medium heat.  Spread cheese on top of bread.  Then lay down your slices of turkey.  I made sure to keep my turkey to one layer, but if your turkey slices are thin two layers of turkey would probably be okay.  Then top the turkey with cranberry sauce.  Top with remaining slice of bread, butter side up.  Cook until cheese has melted (this will help hold everything together).  Then flip, and cook until second side is golden brown.  Remove from skillet, cut in half, eat and enjoy!

Note: I heated up my turkey in the microwave a little bit before making the sandwich.  You don’t have to do this, but you might have to grill your sandwich a bit longer to warm up the meat.