For some people, the whole point of Thanksgiving dinner is to have leftovers. These are the people who intentionally buy a monster-size bird, mash way too many potatoes and pop an extra pie in the oven. “In our house, the leftovers are the most exciting part of Thanksgiving. It’s such a great opportunity to use your creative juices to come up with new ways to use them up,“ says Allie Lewis Clapp, food director at Real Simple magazine.

At the Morris house, turkey isn’t just for Thanksgiving. Sarah Morris regularly buys a turkey or turkey breast on sale. She roasts the birds not only for dinners, but for sandwich meat, turkey salad and soups. She freezes what she can’t use right away, so she has meals stashed away for days or weeks ahead. When turkey is priced as low as 38 cents a pound, as it was recently when she bought one, “you cannot beat it,“ Morris said.