Leftover Turkey Tacos

Looking for a way to repurpose all your extra turkey? Try turkey tacos!

This recipe makes great use of your leftover turkey, and gives a totally new flavour profile. When it comes to taco recipes, this one is hard to beat. Here is all you need to know when making this delicious dish:

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

There’s a lot to love about this dish, but here are a couple specific reasons you’ll love these turkey tacos:

It uses ingredients you already have in your pantry.
It makes great use of your leftovers around the holidays.
It’s a simple, quick recipe that’s perfect to make when you’re sick of cooking after putting together a giant gourmet meal.
It gives the turkey a totally new flavour.

Special Equipment Needed To Make This Recipe

You can make this recipe without buying any new equipment. But if you want to up your presentation just a bit, there is one kitchen item to have:

Squeeze bottle - Squeeze bottles are perfect for putting sauce on dishes. This dish calls for sour cream, and if you’re serving it to guests, they’ll be totally impressed by your presentation if you use the squeeze bottle to give a little more precision to your taco toppings.

ingredients for leftover turkey tacos on a table

Special Ingredients You Need For This Recipe

Rice flour - Using rice flour makes these ground turkey tacos gluten free. You can find rice flour at major retailers, and with the growing amount of people who abstain from gluten, you can probably find it at your local grocery store, as well. If not, you can find it online. If you are not worried about your gluten intake, you can use any kind of flour you have.
Little Gem lettuce - Little Gem lettuce is similar to romaine lettuce. It can be purchased at major retailers and potentially your local grocery store or farmers’ market. If you can’t find it, you can always grow it, or just substitute with romaine lettuce.

How To Make This Recipe

Coat turkey in flour. Fry in butter until browned.

Add BBQ sauce, vinegar and water. Coat turkey evenly in sauce.

Assemble tacos, using lettuce, tomato, onion, avocado and turkey. Sprinkle with lime juice, sour cream and cheese.

Top Tip

When cooking the meat, it may be a little dry. Turkey is notorious for being dry, and it doesn’t help when you’re using leftover ground turkey. To remedy this, add a bit of moisture. A bit of chicken broth will keep the turkey meat from becoming too dry.

What to Serve with Your Turkey Tacos

Sides

Desserts

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Cocktails

Popular Substitutions For This Recipe

These are tacos, so variations are expected. And there are a lot of ways you can make even these turkey tacos fit your flavour preferences:

Turkey taco meat

If you don’t have leftover turkey but you still want to make this recipe, feel free to substitute with any other type of meat. Ground chicken tacos are delicious and just as easy to make. Of course you can always use chicken, or even a meat substitution like jackfruit and this walking taco casserole recipe uses ground beef.

Taco Shells

If you are not a crunchy shell fan, feel free to use corn tortillas or soft flour tortillas. You could also use jicama wraps in place of tortilla shells.

Toppings

The sky's the limit when it comes to toppings. I suggest using lettuce, avocados, and cherry tomatoes, but you can use anything you’d like. Feel free to use shredded lettuce, pico de gallo, black beans, or any of your other favourite toppings.

Seasoning

You can also change the seasoning to make this a more traditional taco recipe. Season the ground turkey taco meat with chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder, cayenne pepper, smoked paprika, cumin, and oregano, or just use a packet of taco seasoning (a packet will include chili powder, garlic powder, etc.).

Top with fresh cilantro and freshly ground black pepper. You can still add barbecue sauce, which will make for a super flavorful dish.

Top Tip

If you’re out of crunch shells, make your own by crisping flour tortillas in the oven. Use your oven racks to shape them. You’ll still have the perfect boats for your ground turkey taco meat.

Variations To This Recipe

Turkey taco salad

If you are totally against taco shells, or just eat a gluten-free or low carb diet, you can turn your turkey tacos into a turkey taco salad. All you have to do is increase the amount of lettuce you use and omit the flour tortillas.

Lettuce wraps

If you don’t want to use the tortilla shells but you do want to still feel like you’re eating a turkey, try using lettuce wraps as shells.

You can still use all your same taco toppings, as well as the turkey meat, and it’ll still feel like you’re eating ground turkey tacos. Check out this tuna lettuce wrap recipe for inspiration!

Meat lovers

If you have a bunch of meat to use up, make these tacos meat lovers. Use whatever you have - ground turkey, leftover turkey, beef, chicken, or anything else you’d like.

Homemade barbecue sauce

You can always make your own barbecue sauce, check out this BBQ chicken's sauce! Use tomato sauce and as a base, add something to sweeten it, and enjoy a totally different flavor profile. If you want something with a bit more kick try out this homemade red chile sauce.

leftover turkey tacos ready to be served

How do I store leftovers?

Store leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for up to four days after you originally cooked your turkey. Do not go by the leftover cooking date just because you repurposed them into turkey tacos. They may be okay for additional days, but you’d rather be safe than sorry.

How Long Will This Food Last In the Fridge?

Your leftover turkey tacos will only last up to five days from the original day that you cook the turkey. If you cooked your turkey on day one and didn’t turn it into taco meat until day three, you would only have two days left to keep the ground turkey in the fridge before they go bad.

Can I Freeze This Recipe?

Yes, you can freeze this recipe. It will last in the freezer for a couple months. Make sure you keep it in a freezer bag or another airtight freezer safe container and that you write your date on it.

How do I Thaw This Dish?

You can thaw this dish by putting them in the fridge overnight. You can set the meat out at room temperature for a couple hours to thaw, as well, but then you run the risk of spoiling the turkey.

How do I Reheat This Dish?

You can reheat this dish either by putting it in the microwave or by putting it on the stove top over medium heat. Make sure you stir occasionally to keep it from sticking to the bottom of the pan. And if necessary, add some olive oil or even more barbecue sauce to revive it if it has gotten dry. You want to keep your ground turkey moist.

Other Mexican Recipes You’ll Love

Mexican Omelette - This delicious dish brings some spice to breakfast. With avocados, tomatoes, jalapeños, black beans, and corn, it brings flavour to your morning meal.
Lamb Tacos - For a totally different meat experience, try out my lamb tacos. Made from slow cooked lamb, they are the perfect comfort food when you want something super flavorful and made from meat other than ground turkey.
Guacamole - There are 1,000 guacamole recipes to try, but if you’re looking for homemade taco toppings and want to test out a new recipe, try this one.

Food Safety

Don't leave food sitting out at room temperature for extended periods.
Never leave cooking food unattended.
Use oils with high smoking point to avoid harmful compounds.
Always have good ventilation when using a gas stove.

Don’t forget to come back and let me know how your recipe turned out!

Once you’ve made these ground turkey tacos, let me know what you think. If there’s anything you would do differently, I want to hear!

📖 Recipe