Use leftover turkey to make one of the easiest, fastest meals to throw together: Thai curry.
From the minute you hear your stomach grumbling and you check out the fridge to see what’s there, it’ll only be ten minutes until you sit down to a bowl of beautiful, spicy curry.
Our Mission: Stop Food Waste!
We teach home cooks how to fall in love with their leftovers with Buddha Bowl recipes so that you can stop wasting uneaten food and unused groceries — just like the leftover Thanksgiving turkey you’re sure to have in your fridge in a couple of weeks!
What exactly goes into a Buddha Bowl?
Glad you asked! A Buddha Bowl can be whatever you want it to be, but here’s what we usually do. Start with a base of grains or some kind of starch, then add veggies–cooked, raw, parboiled, etc.–and a protein. Wrap it all up with a signature sauce and a crunchy topping. This is a great way to use up all your leftover rice, lean proteins and all the bits of veggies you find in the drawer.
For this recipe, we’ll be making a Thai curry buddha bowl with leftover Thanksgiving turkey.
Coconut Milk
Coconut milk is key to making a good curry. Make sure you’re using unsweetened canned coconut milk for cooking and not bottled coconut milk meant for drinking. Full-fat unsweetened coconut milk will make a curry that’s rich, creamy, and thicker, but I sometimes use low-fat as well, and it works out just fine!
Fish Sauce in Curry
The fish sauce (and the sugar) are optional in this recipe, but I think the fish sauce is a great ingredient to invest in and have on hand, especially if you make a lot of Vietnamese or Thai food. It’s used just as often as soy sauce in Southeast Asian cooking, and one bottle keeps for months in the pantry.
The flavor of fish sauce is totally unique, and the amount of umami and depth of flavor it adds to a dish is unlike anything else. When I use fish sauce in curries, I always make sure to add a little bit of sugar to balance the flavors out. If you don’t have fish sauce or don’t want to use it, feel free to take it out of this recipe — just remember to take out the sugar, too!
My favorite brand of fish sauce is Red Boat.
Ingredients for Thai Curry Buddha Bowl with Turkey
To make turkey Thai curry, here’s what you need:
- 4 cups cooked jasmine or other white rice
- 2-3 tablespoons Thai curry paste (red or green)
- 1 ¾ cups unsweetened coconut milk (13.5-ounce can)
- 1 tablespoon fish sauce (optional)
- 1 teaspoon sugar (optional)
- ¼ red onion, sliced
- ½ cup canned bamboo shoots
- 1 cup canned baby corn
- 2 cups cooked turkey (12 ounces), cut into bite-sized pieces
- ¼ cup fresh Thai basil leaves (or regular basil leaves)
- Crunchy Topping: fried shallots or onions