Another year, another wonderful Thanksgiving spent with the ones we love. But with the gathering of friends and family for a fantastic feast comes a fridge-full of leftovers. Some of which are easier to make use of than others, so Mandy and I got to thinking. We sat down and asked ourselves: what Thanksgiving dish is the hardest to repurpose, and how could we remedy this conundrum? One word came to mine: Stuffing

“After stuffing ourselves with stuffing galore, we can’t stand to stuff the stuffing in our stuff no more!”

Chris

At least that’s what I thought until Mandy and her magical mind of wonders came along. She proposed, not one, but TWO alternatives to tossing out that leftover stuffing I’d been so standoffish towards. Get ready cause this one’s a twofer, today we have Stuffing Spinach and Cheese Waffles as well as Stuffing Stuffed Bell Peppers. They sound delicious don’t they? There’s not a moment to lose, so let’s dive in!

Recipe #1 – Recipe #2 – Download: Waffles – Download: Peppers – Get to Know Us

Millennial Pen in Hand

Recipe #1: Stuffing Spinach & Cheese Waffles

As I stood at the fridge, tummy gurgling, all I could see was shelves of turkey, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and stuffing! The gurgles would not be satisfied by a meal over-indulged in just yesterday, no! To solve this, we would need a creative mastermind, someone who would take these yesterday yummies and transform them in to a delicacy of today. We needed Mandy.

I turned to Mandy who was next to me, facing a similar issue and asked, “What are we going to do with all this leftover stuffing?!?”

Mandy replied to my question with but one word, “Waffles”.

Now you might not know it from the other side of this blogpost, but we have a growing collection of waffle-makers. With them we make the crispiest of waffles and the cheesiest of egg bites, but this time was different. Mandy flew into a torrent grabbing the following: stuffing, eggs, sausage, chopped spinach. a scallion, a shallot, shredded mozzarella, and pepper (to taste).

Stuffing Waffles Assembly & Assessment

Putting this together was very, and I mean very easy. Having stuffing on hand from the previous day made the rest of this a breeze. What you want to do is start with a bowl, then add all of the ingredients above. From here, portion your waffles accordingly to meet the size of your waffle maker, cook until golden brown. If you do not have a waffle maker don’t worryyyyy! Plop about 1/4 cup scoop into a heated pan, moosh it down and now you have a pancake instead. The taste is just as good as the waffle we promise!

I will say this, the chopped spinach and cheese is a must. But herbs and spices, those are up to you! These are very easy and very customizable and we encourage you to mix and master a recipe that suits you best. That being said, we will provide a recipe if you would like to recreate our masterpiece

What did we tell you, that was near painless wasn’t it? As you can see the texture holds up nicely, they have a pronounced savory flavor, and a beautiful golden brown crispiness from the cheese. We would just like to say this, having sauce on hand is a lifesaver. Be it hot sauce, ketchup, something to help this lil’ guy along.

A concept, perhaps like us, you’re reading this right after Thanksgiving dinner and you have a load of leftovers. Perhaps you have a little bit of gravy leftover. And perhaps, just maybe, some of that gravy could make its way onto your newly discovered delicacy. Just saying, It’ll probably be amazing, just saying.

Recipe #1: Stuffing Spinach & Cheese Waffles

Stuffed Spinach & Cheese Waffles

Chris

A scrumptious way to make use of leftover stuffing from the holidays

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 30 minutes mins

Cook Time 1 hour hr 15 minutes mins

Total Time 1 hour hr 45 minutes mins

Course Breakfast, Side Dish

Cuisine American

Servings 6 people

Ingredients

  

• 2 cups Prepared stuffing mix pick your favorite
• 6 Large eggs
• 1 pack Turkey sausage
• 1 1/2 cups Fresh spinach chopped
• 1 scallion
• 1 shallot
• 1 Serrano pepper for spice
• 1 cup Monterey Jack cheese shredded
• Cracked black pepper to taste

Instructions

 

• In a large bowl, dump your leftover stuffing, dressing, or whatever you call that yummy side dish served on Thanksgiving. Make sure to break up large clumps so that every bit is approximately the same size.
• In a separate bowl, beat your eggs with a splash of milk or half and half. We want these waffles both crispy and fluffy. Set aside
• Roughly chop your spinach and add it to your stuffing bowl. Next, chop your scallion, shallot, and optional pepper. We want to almost mince these veggies the way you would a clove of garlic so that no bite is too overpowering. You could also add a clove of garlic, though we did not.
• Dice up your thawed sausages. If you don’t want to use sausage, bacon or even leftover turkey is a perfect alternative.
• Add your minced veggies, sausage, and all of your cheese to the stuffing bowl, then pour on your beaten eggs. It is important that while mixing everything together, you do not over-mix to the point of creating gloop. Gloop will work fine, but the flavors will be a little indistinguishable.
• Add a good scoop of the mixture to each of your mini waffle makers, or a few good scoops to your large waffle maker, and press down. These should be done by the time the light on the top of your waffle maker turns back on. Alternatively, let them cook a minute or two longer for a crispier outside.

Notes

Here is where you can get creative and use up
some of those Thanksgiving leftovers. Too many
green beans? Extra mushrooms? Unseasoned
potatoes? It’s your time to shine!
When using sausage patties, we found cutting
into 16ths was a good size to get a little bit in
every bite.
A heaping quarter cup worked perfect to scoop
enough mixture into each waffle maker. A
leveled third cup would work great too!
The reason we press down on the waffle maker
after adding the mixture is because the eggs and
stuffing are fluffy, and they do rise. By pressing
down initially, you help to distribute the waffle
out instead of up.

Keyword Stuffing, Waffles

Recipe #2: Stuffing Stuffed Bell Peppers

If I told you that after all of those waffles there was still leftover stuffing to use, would you believe me? I sure know I wouldn’t, BUT THERE WAS! I could hardly believe it myself. At any rate, we had more stuffing which just meant more noms to be made. But it was my turn to shine. A week or so ago, one of my co-workers had enjoyed a couple of stuffed bell peppers. So I thought to myself, what if. What if the stuffing actually stuffed something??? Perhaps this stuffing could be more than a side dish.

No, it deserved to be more than just a measly side dish. And we knew exactly how.

Leftover stuffing, an egg, bell peppers, some onion, garlic cloves, ground beef, a can of tomato sauce, shredded Monterey jack cheese, onion & garlic powder, cumin, parsley, and some s+p(salt & pepper to taste). These are the ingredients you will need. Let’s get to assemblin’.

Stuffed Bell Peppers Assembly

The assembly for this recipe is a bit more complex than that of our previous stuffing repurposing. As mentioned, we will need a few extra ingredients that likely weren’t present on Thanksgiving. But that is ok.

We begin by taking our ground beef and cooking it in a pan. While the beef is cooking, we have to break it apart. This part is important because if left in chunks, the beef would be a bit of a pain when we combine it with the stuffing.

After the beef is thoroughly torn asunder, we season it lightly with the onion powder, garlic powder, cumin, salt + pepper. Emphasis on lightly, even if our stuffing is boxed there is loads of flavor already in there. As much as I advocate for a well seasoned dish, there is a point where flavors start competing. We do not want to go there, it isn’t a savory place to be.

Now that our beef has been cooked and seasoned drain as much fat from it as possible then remove it from the heat. It’s time to turn our attention to the stuffing. Take the leftover stuffing and place it into a big bowl. All we’re adding right now is the lone eggy. Duke Eggerson the 1st if you will. Crack him open right into the stuffing bowl, then, with your hands or a wooden spoon, mix until incorporated.

Once a moment of respect has been paid in Duke’s honor, we can take the beef mixture and combine it with our stuffing mixture. After we add a little of our tomato sauce our stuffing 2.0 is complete. We can finally slice our peppers in half and stuff them. From here on out we’re on easy street. Just top the peppers with a little tomato sauce, bake for 20-30 minutes, sprinkle some cheese on top, another 5-10 minutes in the oven then serve. Easy peasy.

Stuffed Bell Peppers Assessment

These peppers took a little bit more work than our waffles but boy was it worth it. Even though we used a canned sauce, having something on there to keep the goods from drying out made all the difference. On top of that, the combination of flavors from the original stuffing, as well as the ground beef, made for a meal well deserved. Not to mention the role our bell peppers played in bringing everything full circle.

We would like to address a couple possible improvements. Firstly, if we used homemade tomato sauce (not marinara), the flavor levels would have skyrocketed. Secondly, Mandy had suggested using a poblano pepper, in hindsight this is 100% the right thing to do. Please try poblanos and let us know how it was.

Finally, we highly, highly recommend that you make sure the peppers are nice and soft with little snap to them. When we pulled the peppers out, we were so excited to eat that we didn’t consider our peppers not being fully cooked. Mandy and I regretted this immediately once the first pepper didn’t slice nicely. We ended up having to microwave them, which didn’t ruin the flavor, but definitely altered the consistency. IYKYK.

We really enjoyed these two recipes finding the first one very easy to make as well as extremely versatile. With the second recipe being a bit more time consuming but worth the hard work. We’re always looking for ways to improve and provide you with a more enjoyable meal. If you have ways that we can do better, share them, we’re always willing to listen and love engaging with our audience.

Recipe: Stuffing Stuffed Bell Peppers

Stuffing Stuffed Bell Peppers

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 30 minutes mins

Cook Time 1 hour hr 20 minutes mins

Course Main Course, Side Dish

Cuisine American

Ingredients

  

• 2 cups Prepared stuffing mix
• 1 Large egg
• 3 Large bell peppers
• 1/3 Onion Red, white, or yellow
• 3 Garlic cloves
• ~1 lb Ground beef
• 1/2 tsp Garlic powder
• 1 tsp Onion powder
• 1/2 tsp Cumin
• 1 tsp Parsley
• Salt & Pepper to taste

Instructions

 

• In a large bowl, dump your leftover stuffing, dressing, or whatever you call that yummy side dish served on Thanksgiving. Make sure to break up large clumps so that every bit is approximately the same size
• Crack your egg into the stuffing and mix well. You want the egg to come to room temperature before adding in the cooked ground beef
• On the stove, set a pan on medium heat with a drizzle of your oil of choice. We find avocado is a very mild alternative. Dice your onion and garlic, add to the pan once hot. Sauté until fragrant and the garlic begins to brown
• Add your ground beef and stir frequently, breaking up big chunks. Add your garlic and onion powder, cumin, parsley, and a to taste amount of salt and pepper. Continue to stir and break up those big chunks to get small grounds. This will help everything incorporate better later
• Pull your ground beef off the stove and drain as much grease as you can. This will help the mixture come together better, and you won’t have little grease pools in the bottom of your pan. Let thebeef cool for a few minutes
• While you’re waiting, wash, slice, and core your peppers. Spray a 9×13 baking dish and lay your peppers in the pan so the centers face up. Set your oven to 350F
• Add ~2oz of tomato sauce to your stuffing mixture. Temperature-check your meat (make sure it won’t burn your hands when you touch it). Put on some gloves and add the cooled beef to the stuffing, and then mix the way you would making meatballs. You should have a filling that now holds its shape
• Add the filling to your peppers, shaping the mixture into the curves without over-filling. Top with more tomato sauce, and place in the oven for 20 minutes
• After 20 minutes, test your peppers with a fork. If the fork can’t poke through, they may need a few more minutes. Once they’re ready, take them out and sprinkle on some cheese. As much or as little as you like. We prefer a very cheesy topping. Stick them back in to broil for 5 more minutes until golden, and you’ve got yourself one beautiful looking stuffed pepper

Notes

You can also make this recipe without
having to cook the beef first. Mandy likes to
do this to remove a lot of excess grease, but
if you don’t mind it, or want to use a leaner
meat, you can leave out the sautéing
altogether.
Traditionally, stuffed peppers use the whole
pepper and stand up. We found that the
sizes of the peppers we had would be more
than enough to slice down the middle. If
you want to use the whole pepper, you
could buy 6 smaller peppers, but you may
need to make more filling.

Keyword Bell Peppers, Stuffing

Thank You So Much

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We are always striving to improve the meals we make because food is a wonderful thing that should be shared among wonderful people. The only way that we can get better at what we do is if you speak up and tell us what you think. Comment on this post, dive into our other posts, if you get the chance check out our social media accounts and share it with everyone you know.

To end this, Mandy and I would just like to thank you for reading this through.

Thank you for being you, and we look forward to our next mentionable meal.