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If you’re wondering what to do with your leftover turkey meat, this turkey salad recipe is your answer. It’s easy to make, colorful, flavor-packed, and rich in nutrients. You’ll need some pressure cooker turkey breast, air fryer turkey tenderloin, or any leftover turkey meat and a handful of other basic ingredients. In this post, I’ll share how to make turkey salad with cranberries and a sweet, tangy dressing.
Why Make This?
- Quick and Easy: Making this salad is incredibly easy and fast. All you do is put the ingredients in a bowl and mix to incorporate.
- Option to utilize leftover turkey: Besides making leftover turkey soup, this turkey salad is a perfect way to reuse leftover turkey after Thanksgiving.
Ingredients Needed
- Leftover turkey: I cubed this meat. You can incorporate leftovers from my pressure cooker turkey breast, air fryer turkey thigh, crockpot turkey tenderloin, or air fryer turkey tenderloin.
- Dried cranberries: Be sure to use the unsweetened variety for keto.
- Pecans: I got these dry roasted and chopped
- Red onions: these are sweeter and milder tasting than regular yellow onions so I prefer them in cold salads. I diced these
- Celery: adding celery to turkey salad is optional.
- Bacon: you crisp this on the stove top or with my air fryer bacon recipe. After the meat is crisped, simply crumble it. If you don’t eat pork, you can also enjoy this with air fryer turkey bacon.
Dressing Ingredients
- Mayo: I’m using full fat mayo, but you can substitute that with greek yogurt or sour cream.
- Granular sweetener
- Dijon mustard
- Apple cider vinegar
- Black pepper
- Garlic powder
How to Make Leftover Turkey Salad with Cranberries
- Whisk the dressing ingredients together in a small bowl.
- Add the turkey and other add-ins to a large bowl.
- Pour the dressing over the turkey and other add-ins.
- Mix to incorporate.
Recipe Tips & FAQs
- You can make this without celery by omitting the celery
- Substitute mayo with sour cream or greek yogurt if you need a lighter option
- Use my air fryer bacon (or air fryer turkey bacon if you don’t eat pork) for the crisped bacon
- Choose unsweetened dried cranberries for keto and the low sugar option if you wish for lower carbs
The main ingredient is leftover turkey meat, and you get to choose the rest of the ingredients. This recipe uses my air fryer turkey tenderloin, cranberries, bacon, sweetener, seasonings, and other ingredients.
It’s okay to have eggs in your salad. But, this recipe does not use eggs. For turkey salad with eggs, simply add 2-3 hard boiled eggs to this recipe.
Turkey salad stays in the fridge for up to 4 days without going bad.
No. You can freeze leftover turkey by itself then use thawed leftover turkey in this recipe. However, I would not recommend freezing leftover turkey salad.
It depends on the ingredients you use in the salad. Turkey meat is low in calories, but if you use other carb-loaded salad ingredients and dressing, you will not achieve your weight loss goals.
Recipes to Enjoy This With
- Turkey Tenderloin
- Crockpot Turkey Breast Tenderloin
- Pressure Cooker Turkey Breast
- Air Fryer Bacon
- Air Fryer Hard Boiled Eggs
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Leftover Turkey Salad Recipe
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Recommended Equipment
Ingredients
- 2.5 cups leftover turkey, This is about half of my air fryer turkey tenderloin
- 1/4 cup dried cranberries, use unsweetened for keto
- 1/4 cup Unsalted Pecans, chopped
- 1/4 cup red onions, diced
- 1/4 cup celery, sliced thinly
- 4 slices Bacon, crisped and crumbled, you can use more to taste if you wish
Turkey Salad Dressing Ingredients
- 1/2 tbsp Granular Sweetener, any granular sweetener will work – be sure that it is a 1:1 for sugar
- 1/2 tbsp Dijon mustard
- 1 tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar
- 1/4 tsp Black Pepper
- 1/4 tsp Garlic Powder
- 1/4 tsp Onion Powder
Instructions
- Whisk the dressing ingredients together in a small bowl.
- Add the turkey and other add-ins to a large bowl.
- Pour the dressing over the Turkey and other salad add-ins.
- Mix to incorporate.
Recipe Notes
- You can make turkey salad without celery by omitting the celery
- Substitute mayo with sour cream or greek yogurt if you need a lighter option
- Use my air fryer bacon (or air fryer turkey bacon if you don’t eat pork) for the crisped bacon
- Choose unsweetened dried cranberries for keto and the low sugar option if you wish for lower carbs
Nutrition Details
The nutrition facts come from entering the recipe ingredients into Spoonacular API, a database of food ingredients. They may vary for any recipe based on the exact product used. The keto sweeteners I use have 0g net carbs & are not included because sugar alcohols do not impact most people. This is provided as a courtesy, but you can do your own calculations if you wish!
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