Years ago—I can’t remember if it was while we lived in California or if we’d already moved to Delaware—Sarah had the idea to celebrate the day after Thanksgiving with sandwiches. We always prepare a Thanksgiving meal at our house, so we always have a ton of leftovers. Just sort of the nature of the game. But using all those leftovers before they go bad is invariably a struggle. Traditionally, you prepare to-go packages for guests and that helps shift some of the food. But when it is just the two of us and maybe a single guest? What do you do with the rest of it all?
The answer? Sandwich Day.
I hate food waste. It drives me nuts, especially with meat. As touchy-feely as it sounds, I believe that if an animal died so you can eat, you have a responsibility to make use of that sacrifice as thoroughly as possible. I am not against eating meat, but I am against treating it with disrespect. And waste is disrespectful.
With a meal as big as Thanksgiving, ensuring that all the food is eaten and nothing is wasted is difficult. But if you invite a bunch of people over to eat it all remade as sandwiches, you go a long way toward mitigating waste.
So, Sandwich Day. Sandwich Day started as the day following Thanksgiving and remained that way for a few years. That meant that our leftovers were still plentiful and fresh; they hadn’t been subjected to days in the fridge and picky fingers going into and out of containers. It was a good system.
Later, after the pandemic and lockdown, life changed with children and jobs and expanding social networks. Sarah typically works the Friday after Thanksgiving because God forbid people don’t have a chance to go have a lobster roll immediately following a turkey feast. Sandwich Day Friday became impossible, so we moved it to Sunday, the day the restaurant is closed during the off-season. Then she started inviting people from work over and it became a bit of a party.
More people also means that we require more leftovers; more leftovers than we generally have. It’s also kind of whack to invite people over to your house to feed them four-day-old food. Now I cook a second turkey the day before Sandwich Day Sunday, prepare more cranberry sauce, and make more gravy. Kind of like a 0.5x Thanksgiving dinner prep. The stuffing is still fine by Sunday.
The day is fun, though, and worth the extra kitchen effort. And we always run through everything, so waste is avoided. What meat isn’t used ends up in a turkey pot pie the next day, anyway, so it’s all good. The sheer amount of stock I end up getting from two turkey carcasses is also wild.
Don’t think this just people coming over and eating cold turkey sandwiches and drinking wine. No, we go for it. We’ve gone for it from the jump. The idea was that we’d each make a different sandwich and there’d be a third classic Thanksgiving leftovers sandwich available. Traditionally I make a Kentucky Hot Brown and Sarah finds a new sandwich somewhere online to try. This year we’re going to simplify to just the Kentucky Hot Brown and Leftovers sandwiches.
A Kentucky Hot Brown is an open-faced “sandwich” served hot from the broiler. It’s turkey meat, roasted tomato, mornay sauce, bacon, and toast thrown into the oven to get hot as heck. Dress it with a little parsley at the end for freshness and eat it with a fork and knife. It’s insanely delicious. I omit the tomato because November isn’t exactly tomato season here in the Northern Hemisphere, but I don’t change anything else.
Originally created at the Brown Hotel in Louisville, KY in the 1920s, the sandwich itself has grown past its Kentucky roots. You’ll find a lot of recipes online and they’re all riffs on the same idea. If you want the original from the restaurant that created it, you can find it here. I don’t recall where I found the recipe back all those years ago, but it’s likely it was this one from Serious Eats. The date of publishing checks out and that photo of the bubbling grease is tickling the memory holes in my brain. However you decide to make it, the important factors are turkey, mornay, bacon, toast, and heat. Everything else is just dressing.
I encourage you to incorporate Sandwich Day into your Thanksgiving weekend, especially if you aren’t traveling. Christmas gets at least two days of celebration, so why not give the superior Thanksgiving the same recognition? It’s a great way to spend more structured time with your loved ones, reduce waste, and try something new. Give it a try.
