This turkey salad is a blend of diced turkey and colorful veggies, all tossed in a savory creamy dressing. A super easy and delicious way to use up leftover turkey with plenty of options to customize the flavors!
Whenever I have extra turkey on hand, I turn to family favorites such as turkey pasta carbonara, turkey roll ups, and this quick and satisfying salad.
I always buy an oversized turkey for the holidays so that I have plenty of leftovers. One of the easiest ways to repurpose leftover turkey is with this flavorful turkey salad. It contains just a handful of ingredients, and is great when served in so many different ways.
How do you make turkey salad?
Dice your turkey into bite size pieces, then place it in a bowl. Add finely diced celery, red onion and parsley. Stir together a mayonnaise based dressing, then pour the dressing over the turkey and vegetables. Serve immediately, or refrigerate for later use.
Tips for the perfect salad
- White or dark meat turkey both work well for this dish, or you can use a combination of the two.
- You can serve this salad with a side of crackers, spoon it into lettuce leaves for a low carb option, or mound it onto a croissant or toasted bread with lettuce and sliced tomato to serve as a sandwich.
- I prefer to cut my turkey pieces into 1/4 inch cubes, I find it holds together better that way. That being said, you can cut your turkey as fine or as coarse as you like.
- Looking to save a few calories? It’s fine to substitute light mayonnaise instead of the full fat variety.
- I make this dish year round, it’s not just for leftover turkey! If I don’t have leftovers on hand, I purchase a turkey breast at the grocery store and cook it to use in salad.
How long can you keep turkey salad?
This salad will stay fresh in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. Keep it in an airtight container for best results. Turkey salad should not sit at room temperature for longer than 2 hours.
Can turkey salad be frozen?
I do not recommend freezing this salad, as it will be watery when thawed. You can freeze leftover turkey to defrost at a later time to make this dish, just don’t freeze the prepared salad.
Flavor Variations
This salad is delicious as written, but you can add other ingredients to customize it to your tastes.
- Veggies: Feel free to add more vegetables such as diced red bell pepper, cucumber, artichoke hearts, chopped spinach or finely diced carrot.
- Herbs and Spices: Kick up the flavor with sliced green onions, chives, dill or fresh basil. Feel free to stir in some spices such as curry powder, garlic powder, smoked paprika or Italian seasoning.
- Add-Ins: Try adding dried cranberries, halved fresh grapes or a handful of pecans or walnuts for a sweet and savory blend.
- Protein: You can also make this salad with smoked deli style turkey or diced cooked chicken breast.
Turkey salad is an absolute must-make recipe. It has the perfect blend of flavors that’s sure to please everyone.
More salad recipes you’ll enjoy
Turkey Salad Video
Turkey Salad
Ingredients
- 4 cups cooked turkey diced
- 1/2 cup celery finely chopped
- 2 tablespoons red onion finely chopped
- 2 tablespoons fresh parsley leaves finely chopped
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise
- 2 tablespoons sour cream
- 2 teaspoons lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- 1/2 teaspoon sugar
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Place the turkey in a large bowl.
- Add the celery, red onion and parsley to the bowl.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, sour cream, lemon juice, mustard, sugar, salt and pepper.
- Pour the dressing over the turkey mixture. Toss gently to coat, then serve.
Perfect. Delicious. Followed the recipe. This will become a Thanksgiving leftover go to in the future
I apologize in advance for the question. I cook a 12-16 pound holiday turkey, which must be defrosted and then prepped before cooking for @ 4-5 hours. How do you cook a turkey breast? I’m hoping it’s easier.
Here is my roasted turkey breast recipe: https://www.dinneratthezoo.com/roasted-turkey-breast/
I admit I chose this because my family doesn’t like all the add-ins that I do – raisins, grapes, etc, but this is a great recipe – even better the next day! Thanks so much for sharing!
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This recipe is perfect. I was going to add dried cranberries and walnuts but didn’t have any on hand as I had thought. As it turns out, they weren’t needed. Will definitely make this again.
Perfect recipe for the left over turkey. I put it on toasted croissants!
This was the first dish we made with our leftover Thanksgiving turkey. Delicious. I happen to have some fresh dill on hand so I added that otherwise I didn’t change a thing. It is perfect as is, especially served over some lovely greens from our CSA farm.
Thank you so much for this recipe!! I added a little green apple, sliced onions also! So delicious!! Hard to find good recipes
for turkey salad for leftover Thanksgiving turkey!! It’s a keeper for us!!!!
Such a tasty way to enjoy leftover turkey! This looks absolutely delicious.
Sounds like a great easy way to use up some leftover turkey!
I always buy an oversized turkey for this very reason! I’ll definitely be making this salad with leftovers 🙂
I’m definitely holding on to this recipe for post-Thanksgiving turkey. In the meantime, I might substitute some leftover chicken. It looks too good to wait another month!
This is a delicious recipe. All the flavors that come together are so amazing.
This is totally my kind of salad!! The perfect lunch!
This is really amazing!! Such a flavorful salad!!
I love this recipe! It’s so delicious and tasty! My wife made me this for lunch and boy was it tasty!
So colorful and tasty! Deli-cious way to use up turkey
Its a keeper omg so good
This turkey salad couldn’t look any more perfect!
I am always looking for some new lunch ideas. This sounds perfect!
Turkey salad on a crescent roll sounds amazing right now!