These turkey sliders have become of my favorite things about the day after Thanksgiving aka Black Friday. Using leftover cranberry sauce to create a BBQ sauce to top the leftover turkey. A leftover turkey sandwich never tasted so good. Biscuits, dinner rolls or Hawaiian rolls make the perfect sandwich fooder.
Got a fridge full of leftover turkey?
Maybe some cranberry sauce?
Then you are two steps closer to make this wonderful cranberry BBQ sauce turkey slider, that Giada made on an episode of her show, Giada at Home.
I am a big fan of fruity BBQ sauces. This year only I have made BBQ sauce with cherries, peaches, and apples. Cranberries seems like a good ideas as well.
Here are my notes from giving this recipe a go. You will find the full recipe below, written out in my own words.
What Bread to Choose
You can use whatever bread/rolls you like for the sliders. I choose some biscuits I just happened to have on hand. I would seriously make biscuits from scratch just for the occasion.
Leftover dinner rolls are a good choice as well.
Hawaiian Rolls for Sliders
If you are either tired of cooking or don’t have any leftover dinner rolls in your house, picking up a pack or two of Hawaiian rolls from the grocery store would be a delicious turkey slider option.
Making the Slaw
Slaw and BBQ is my jam. I love some tasty veggies on top of my meat, along with some sweet and tangy BBQ sauce. It’s really the best.
The slaw recipe calls for celery that you probably have leftover from your stuffing or something else. And Granny Smith apples. Pick any apple that is crisp and has some tartness to it. I went with my favorite tart baking apple, the Northern Spy. You could do Honeycrisp if you want as well.
Making the Cranberry BBQ Sauce
These are the ingredients you need to make the BBQ sauce:
- Leftover cranberry sauce
- Shallot
- Garlic
- Ketchup
- Apple Cider Vinegar
- Dijon mustard
- Worcestershire sauce
- Kosher salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
You need 1/2 cup of leftover cranberry sauce to make the cranberry BBQ sauce. Wouldn’t be a bad idea to make extra cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving for this recipe the next day. I used leftover Homemade Jellied Cranberry Sauce.
If you aren’t going to use fresh, you would need a can of cranberry sauce.
Any kind of mustard will do for the sauce – yellow, stone ground, brown, Dijon etc. Use whatever is in your fridge. The original recipe does call for Dijon.
Cook the sauce until it’s to your desire consistency. It may take more than 5 minutes in your kitchen. Go by feel here not time.
I choose not to mix the turkey directly with the sauce. I prefer to give people the choice of how much sauce they want on their turkey.
Recipe for Leftover Turkey Sliders
This beats the plain old turkey sandwich any day. The BBQ sauce was finger licking good. It went with the turkey very well without being overpowering. And my wife LOVED the slaw.
Here is the recipe. Feel free to customize it with the ingredients you have leftover in your fridge. Don’t have celery? Use carrots. Want to put a thin layer of mashed potatoes? Do it! Make it fun and creative.
Giada’s Turkey Sliders with Cranberry BBQ Sauce
Ingredients
Celery-Apple Slaw
- 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 1 tsp Dijon mustard
- 1 tsp olive oil
- 1/4 tsp kosher salt
- 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
- 2 ribs celery slicked thin
- 1 Granny Smith or tart apple cored, unpeeled, cut into 2-inch sticks
Cranberry BBQ Sliders
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 large shallot diced
- 1 clove garlic minced
- 1/2 cup cranberry sauce
- 1/4 cup ketchup
- 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 2 tsp Dijon mustard
- 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
- 3 cups shredded turkey white and/or dark meat
- 12 rolls or biscuits
Instructions
To make the slaw
- Thinly slice the celery.
- Cut the apple into matchstick sized pieces.
- Combine the apple and celery into a bowl. Add in the vinegar, mustard, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Mix well to combine. Set aside.
To make the bbq sauce
- Add the oil to a saucepan over medium heat. Add in the diced shallots. Cook til softened about 5 minutes. Then add in the garlic and cook for 30 seconds.
- Add in the cranberry sauce, ketchup, vinegar, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper.
- Bring to just a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Cook until the sauce thickens about 5 minutes.
- If you want the sauce to be smooth, run it through a food processor or blender. Or you could allow it to cool enough to smooth it out with a sticker blender.
Assembly the sliders
- Put the turkey on the sliders cold or heat it up first. Then add 1/4 cup of turkey to each bun, roll, or biscuit.
- Add 2 tablespoons of the slow and then top with the BBQ sauce.
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