Turkey Curry, the Best Thanksgiving Leftovers Recipe

This Japanese-style Turkey Curry is the perfect recipe remix to fire up your palate when you're on day 5 of the same ol' Thanksgiving leftover turkey sandwiches. The curry base is infused with both deeply aromatic and warming spices, so the curry is rich and comforting without feeling heavy. And there's a secret ingredient that adds that subtle sweetness that is characteristic Japanese curry. Just throw in leftover turkey, as well as any leftover vegetables from Thanksgiving that you're bound to have! Shall we?

_{updated November 2025, originally posted 2006}

Explore More

• What is Japanese Curry, as Opposed to Indian or Thai Curry?
• What Ingredients You Need for Japanese-style-Turkey Curry
• What is the Best Curry Powder to Use for Curry?
• Is Turkey Curry Healthy?
• Turkey Curry from Thanksgiving Leftovers Recipe

What is Japanese Curry, as Opposed to Indian or Thai Curry?

Japanese curry, and consequently Korean curry, is one of my go-to foods to make at home when I can't think of anything else to eat but still want something comforting and delicious. It is a thick, mildly spiced, subtly sweet stew served over rice and sometimes noodles. The curry can be chock full of protein and vegetables, or just the curry base ladled like gravy over breaded chicken cutlets.

The foundation of Japanese curry lies in the curry roux, which is a mixture of butter or oil, flour, and curry powder cooked together until dark and fragrant. If you're already familiar with Japanese curry, you may know the "instant" curry roux blocks that you simply dissolve into water to make the curry base. (A staple in my kitchen in my early years of cooking on my own!) Curry roux thickens the sauce and gives the curry its signature spice flavor. The sweetness comes from adding straight up sugar, honey, and in my from-scratch recipe, naturally from fruit, and from added root vegetables like carrots.

Japanese Curry vs Indian Curry vs Thai Curry

Though they all have dishes we call "curry" in English, Japanese curry, Indian curry, and Thai curry couldn't be more different. Apologies in advance for the oversimplification for the sake of explanation! Indian curries are a huge category of food. But in general, though they have similar spices to Japanese curry, Indian curries have more heat and are thickened with dairy or coconut milk. Thai curries generally have a totally different flavor profile that comes from herbs, citrus, and umami from seafood, are also spicier with what I call a "high-toned" heat, and are thickened with coconut milk.

What Ingredients You Need for Japanese-style-Turkey Curry

Fresh/refrigerator ingredients:

• Leftover turkey, 1½ pound chopped or shredded
• Onion, ½, thinly sliced lengthwise
• Garlic, 2 cloves finely minced or grated
• Ginger, 1 teaspoon grated fresh or use ¼ teaspoon dried
• Carrots, 2 large sliced
• Potato, 1½ cups waxy variety like Yukon gold, diced
• Green beans, 1 cup cut into 1½-inch pieces
• Frozen peas, 1 cup
• Turkey Bone Broth, 4 cups or other rich broth or stock

Dry/pantry ingredients:

• Avocado oil, 2+2 tablespoons
• Flour, 2 tablespoons all-purpose, gluten-free blend, or sweet rice flour (mochiko)
• Japanese curry powder, 2 tablespoons 
• Sea salt, 1-3 teaspoon
• Soy sauce, 1 teaspoon
• Gochugaru or other hot chile pepper powder, 1 tablespoon optional

For serving and garnish:

• Brown rice, 4 cups cooked
• Green onions, thinly sliced for garnish

Curry powder is not a single spice, but a general term for a highly aromatic blend of spices used to add depth, warmth, and a subtle kick to recipes. The exact mix varies by culture, region and purpose, with some blends including upwards of 20 different individual spices! For example, Indian-style curry powders tend to be robust and earthy with cumin, coriander, turmeric, fenugreek, and mustard seeds. Japanese curry powder, derived from Indian curry powders, is milder and slightly sweeter, with the similar turmeric, coriander, cumin, fenugreek, and fennel, but may include spices associated with sweetness like cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.

When choosing a curry powder for this recipe, it's usually easiest to simply look for a Japanese curry powder like S&B and House Foods brands. However, you can also use a any blend that simply says "curry powder" as long as it has at least turmeric, coriander, cumin, fennel, fenugreek, ginger, and chile pepper. This will get you started, and you can add pinches of additional spices like cinnamon as you taste.

What to Look For in Curry Powder

• Start small: Curry powder is flavorful. Begin with a teaspoon per serving and adjust to taste.
• Bloom it for depth: Toasting it lightly in oil before adding liquids helps release the spices’ aroma and richness.
• Pair wisely: Works beautifully with roasted or leftover turkey, chicken, or vegetables. The mild sweetness of Japanese curry powder complements the natural flavors without overpowering them.
• Storage matters: Keep it in a sealed jar, away from light and heat. Old curry powder loses its punch, so refresh your stock every 6 months.
• Layer flavors: Combine with fresh ginger, garlic, or a touch of chili for a curry that’s bright, savory, and uniquely your own.

Additional Ingredients Notes and Resources

Turkey Bone Broth. I will always recommend that you make your own turkey bone broth from the leftover bones from the Thanksgiving turkey, but like the Barefoot Contessa says, store-bought is fine. Read the ingredients list and get one with turkey as the first ingredient. You can also substitute with chicken stock, a rich vegetable or mushroom stock, and to be honest because there are so many rich aromatics in the curry, you can get away with using just water.

Flour. Traditional roux is made with all-purpose flour. If you'd like a wheat-free option, use a gluten-free flour blend or sweet rice flour, aka mochiko, which is what I use.

Is Turkey Curry Healthy?

Depending on your health needs and dietary considerations, this Turkey Curry made from scratch can be healthy! Especially if you load it full of lean protein and fresh vegetables. The curry base uses fruit and root vegetables for natural, subtle sweetness, a small amount of healthy avocado oil, and no chemical flavor enhancers. This Turkey Curry is a healthier choice over versions made with store-bought instant curry roux blocks, which contain refined sugar, palm oil, and chemical flavor enhancers (which increase sodium content). And because you're making Homemade Turkey Curry from scratch, you can control how much salt you add.

To be honest, I can't really think of a case in which Turkey Curry would not be healthy, unless maybe "hot" spices like black pepper and chile pepper cause heartburn or other gastric issues for you.

Nutritional Highlights

Let's break down some of the nutritional highlights, starting with the most obvious nutrition hero, turmeric, cinnamon, and ginger (not to mention all the other spices):

Turmeric is universally known as an anti-inflammatory, so much that people take whole turmeric supplements! But like I always say for health an nutrition, food first, supplements after. I take both a turmeric supplement and another supplement for auto-immune that has turmeric as its first ingredient!

Ginger like its cousin turmeric, is an anti-inflammatory. In addition, ginger provides digestive support and some studies suggest that it has metabolic benefits as well.

Cinnamon can help regulate blood sugar, has anti-inflammatory effects, and some studies suggest that it can improve heart health by lowering the bad LDL cholesterol and trigylceride levels.

Turkey is one of the best sources of lean protein, particularly the breast/white meat. Based on the type of turkey, and how it was cooked, one serving of Turkey Curry can have 44-51 gram of protein!

Turkey Curry Recipe Health and Diet Considerations

This recipe for Turkey Curry is:

• dairy-free
• refined sugar-free
• gluten-free adaptable is you use gluten-free flour in the roux and tamari
• anti-inflammatory

Food for Afterthoughts

I used to wake up every morning before 6 am, drive to the gym so I could be there before the freshly-showered, fully glossed and flossed beauty queens could monopolize the treadmills, work out, drive back home, get ready for work, drive to work, actually work (like, really work, not blog), leave work, get home late, pour myself a home-cooked bowl of Special K, and devour it standing over the sink in my kitchen watching CNN and The Daily Show before collapsing into bed, just to start the wicked cycle all over again in a mere five hours. Sliced bananas, too, if I was feeling extra-special creative, and the bananas I bought a week and half ago haven’t fermented into Chiquita wine.

As much as I loved the utter control and rhythmic method, it was madness. I got sick of the monotony. Even when I changed it up a little with Total, then with Cinnamon Toast Crunch, in the end, it was all a bunch of flakes. I resolved to make real food for dinner at the end of the day, even if it meant I would be standing over the stove half-asleep, a wooden spoon propping up my drooping head so I didn’t singe my non-existent eyebrows off my face.

If I were efficient, I wouldn’t have to make drastic alterations to the Monday-through-Friday, 6 am to 10 pm part of my life. I could schmooze and cruise the Sunday morning farmers’ markets, read the paper over brunch, then make a gargantuan portion of some delicious dish on every lazy Sunday afternoon. During the week, all I would have to do is just reheat the leftovers, thus saving me from a straight five very Special nights. Brilliant! Too bad that I went from five straight nights of Special K to five straight nights of the same whatever it was I made on Sunday. In the grand game of hopscotch called “life,” I had skipped right back to square one.

Enter: Puff Daddy...er, I mean, Puffy...or is it P. Diddy? Right, it’s just...Diddy.

Diddy ain’t got diddly on this uber-urban, uber-slick DJ. She’s a Delicious Jockey, and sorry Mr. Combs, she invented the remix.

With the help of a University of Chicago economist, I made Thanksgiving turkey. The beauty of a fully home-cooked turkey, though, isn’t that it's the big, beautiful centerpiece of Thanksgiving dinner. The beauty of Thanksgiving turkey is that it's dry and nobody eats it because there are too many other far more flavorful and interesting dishes on the table (and the buffet, and the countertop, and still sitting in pots and pans on the stove). No, the beauty of dry-ass Thanksgiving turkey is that is was MADE to be "remixed" many times over for the rest of the weekend, or until the end of time, whichever comes first.

You can still have the satisfaction of cooking from scratch all day on Thursday, and do a re-heat with a tweak to eat during the week. (Yes! She’s a rhymer-ess, too!)

Remember when you used to buy “singles?” I do. I even remember when I used to buy singles on cassette tapes. LOL! Side A would have the original, extended recording of the song, and side B would have the abbreviated Radio Edit, censored of any and all expletives, as well as the DivaDance Mix, DJ Skribble’s SuperClub Mix that had no lyrics, and Moby’s UltraChilled Mix, just in case you wanted to do yoga to U2’s Sweetest Thing. I’ll be honest, I loved buying singles for the remixes, DJ Skribble included or otherwise.

ANYWAY.

After pulling off all the good turkey meat, I make Turkey Bone Broth, then I re-mixed the it into a Japanese-style curry, but it wasn’t just the regular shmegular radio edit with a store-bought "instant" curry roux. We did it from scratch. I’m just sort of crazy like that. Especially when it come to turkey, baby.

Scratch and mix. Like a real dinner jockey.

Curry Variations