Turkey Tetrazzini

Turkey Tetrazzini is leftover turkey and spaghetti folded into a cream cheese sauce, baked until the top browns and the edges bubble up the sides. It’s the reason I roast a bigger bird than we need. Thanksgiving dinner is good, but this is the meal I’m actually waiting for.

By day 3, nobody wants another turkey sandwich. I have personally watched people open the fridge, look directly at the foil package, and close the fridge again.

So this is the recipe for day 3.

Turkey Tetrazzini takes the same bird and makes it unrecognizable. Spaghetti, a sauce built on cream cheese and Parmesan, the turkey chopped and folded all the way through, baked until the top goes golden and the edges bubble. Nobody says the word leftovers. Somebody usually asks for the recipe, which is very satisfying when the answer is “it’s Thursday’s turkey.”

Mine is different from most in 2 ways, and both were on purpose. The sauce gets cream cheese instead of heavy cream. And there are no mushrooms in it. I’ll defend both of those below, at length, because I’ve had opinions about this casserole since 2020 and the comments section has not changed my mind.

It’s a baked pasta casserole. Spaghetti, cooked poultry, a cream sauce and a lot of cheese, stirred together and baked until the top browns.

If you’ve never had it, the closest I can get is this: it tastes like a very good macaroni and cheese that spent a semester in Italy. Rich and savory, a little tangy from the Parmesan, with enough sauce that every single strand is coated.

It gets mixed up with a few other casseroles, so here’s the quick sort:

• Turkey Noodle Casserole uses egg noodles and a lighter sauce, usually with vegetables stirred through. Mine’s right here.
• Chicken Spaghetti is the Southern cousin. Same shape of idea, but built on cheddar and often Rotel, so it comes out spicy and orange rather than creamy and pale.
• Turkey à la King is more or less this sauce served over rice, biscuits or toast instead of baked with pasta.

Parts of the South call a version of this turketti, which is the best name any casserole has ever been given.

• Cooked turkey (4 cups, chopped): Leftover roast turkey is what this is for. Dark meat, white meat, the bits you pulled off the carcass standing at the counter. All of it works.
• Spaghetti (1 pound): Cooked to al dente and no further, because it keeps cooking in the oven. Fettuccine, linguine or egg noodles all work if that’s what’s in the cupboard.
• Butter (½ cup, unsalted): Half the base of the sauce. Unsalted so the Parmesan doesn’t push it over.
• Olive oil (2 tablespoons): In with the butter. It keeps the butter from browning while the onion softens.
• Onion (1 small, chopped): Cooked until soft, about 5 minutes. Don’t rush it, raw onion in a cream sauce is unpleasant.
• Garlic (3 cloves, minced): Goes in for 30 seconds at the end. Any longer over this much heat and it turns bitter.
• All purpose flour (½ cup): This is the roux with the butter. It’s what makes the sauce thick enough to coat a pound of spaghetti.
• Cream cheese (8 ounces, room temperature): The whole reason this is as creamy as it is. Room temperature matters, cold cream cheese goes lumpy and won’t whisk smooth.
• Chicken broth (3 cups, low sodium): Low sodium, because there’s 2 cups of Parmesan coming.
• Milk (2 cups): Whole milk is best. 2% works and the sauce is slightly thinner.
• Italian seasoning (1 teaspoon): I use my own Italian Seasoning blend.
• Salt (1 teaspoon, plus more to taste): Added to the sauce, then tasted again at the end once the Parmesan is in.
• Parmesan cheese (2 cups, grated): 1½ cups melts into the sauce and ½ cup goes over the top for browning.

Heat the oven and cook the pasta: Preheat the oven to 350°F and grease a 9×13 inch casserole dish. Cook the 1 pound of spaghetti to al dente according to the package, then drain it. Pull it a minute early if you’re between 2 numbers. It finishes cooking in the oven.

Start the sauce: Melt the ½ cup of butter with the 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the chopped onion and cook about 5 minutes, until it’s soft and translucent. Add the 3 minced garlic cloves and cook 30 seconds more.

Make the roux: Whisk in the ½ cup of flour and cook about 2 minutes, whisking the whole time. It’ll look like wet sand and that’s correct. This step cooks out the raw flour taste, so don’t shorten it.

Build the sauce: Pour in the 3 cups of chicken broth and the 2 cups of milk, whisking as you go so no lumps form. Add the 1 teaspoon of Italian seasoning, the 1 teaspoon of salt and a few grinds of pepper. Bring it to a boil, then add the 8 ounces of room temperature cream cheese and 1½ cups of the Parmesan. Whisk until both have melted completely and the sauce is smooth. Taste it now and add more salt if it needs it.

Combine and assemble: Stir in the 4 cups of chopped turkey and the drained spaghetti until everything’s coated. Transfer it to the greased dish and spread it level. Scatter the remaining ½ cup of Parmesan over the top.

Bake: Bake for 30 to 45 minutes, until it’s heated all the way through and the top has started to brown. Cold turkey straight from the fridge takes closer to 45. If everything went in warm, check it at 30.

Cream cheese. That’s it. That’s the trick.

Most tetrazzini sauces are a roux with broth and cream, and they’re perfectly nice right up until they spend 45 minutes in a hot oven and split on you. You pull the dish out and there’s a thin pool of fat around the edge, which is not what anyone pictured.

Cream cheese holds. It stays emulsified through the whole bake, it’s thicker and glossier than a cream sauce, and the slight tang cuts through all that butter and Parmesan so the dish doesn’t flatten out halfway through a plate.

2 rules and they are not optional. Block cream cheese, not the whipped stuff in a tub. And let it sit out until it’s room temperature, about 30 minutes, before it goes anywhere near the pan. Cold cream cheese hitting hot liquid turns into lumps that will not whisk out, no matter how long you stand there whisking. Ask me how I know, or don’t. Same answer.

Classic tetrazzini has mushrooms. Mine doesn’t, and before anybody emails me, yes, I know.

There’s an actual reason. Mushrooms let go of a lot of water while they cook, and in a dish that bakes for the better part of an hour, that water has nowhere to go except into the sauce you just spent 15 minutes thickening. You end up thinning the exact thing you were trying to build.

The second reason is that roughly a third of every table has strong feelings about mushrooms, and a holiday weekend casserole for 8 people is not where I choose to fight that battle.

If you want them, cook 8 ounces of sliced cremini in a dry pan first, until they’ve given up their liquid and it’s cooked off, then stir them in with the turkey. Raw mushrooms straight into the dish will undo the sauce.

If mushrooms are the whole point for you, go make my One Pot Chicken and Mushroom Tetrazzini instead. No hard feelings.

This is the version a lot of us grew up eating, and I’m not going to be snobby about it. It’s faster and it uses what’s already in the cupboard.

Skip the butter, olive oil, flour, broth and milk. Soften the onion and garlic in 2 tablespoons of butter, then whisk in 2 cans (10.5 ounces each) of condensed cream of mushroom soup, 1 cup of chicken broth and 1 cup of milk. Add the 8 ounces of cream cheese and 1½ cups of Parmesan exactly as written, then carry on with the turkey and spaghetti. Cream of chicken soup works the same way.

Now the disclaimer, because I’d rather tell you than have you find out at 6pm: I haven’t made it this way in my own kitchen. The amounts are a solid starting point, not a tested recipe. My version is from scratch and it’s the one I’d put in front of company.

But if it’s a Tuesday and you have 20 minutes, open the can. Your family will eat it and nobody will know.

This freezes better than almost anything else I make, which is lucky, since it tends to turn up in the same week you’ve run out of will to cook.

• Make ahead: Assemble it completely, don’t bake it, cover it tightly and refrigerate up to 2 days. Add 10 to 15 minutes to the bake since it’s going in cold.
• Freeze unbaked: Assemble in a freezer safe dish, wrap in plastic and then foil, freeze up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the fridge, then bake as written plus 10 to 15 minutes.
• Freeze baked: Cool it completely, portion it into containers, freeze up to 3 months. This is the one I actually do, because a single portion reheats properly and a frozen slab does not.
• The move: assemble it in 2 smaller dishes instead of 1 big one. Bake 1 tonight, freeze the other. Identical work, 2 dinners, and in February you will feel like a genius.

• Undercook the spaghetti. I know the box says 11 minutes. The box has never met your oven. Pull it at 9, drain it while it still has a bit of bite, and let the oven finish the job.
• Get the cream cheese out first, before you chop a single thing. It needs about 30 minutes on the counter and you will forget if you don’t do it now.
• Taste the sauce before the turkey goes in. Once there’s 4 cups of turkey and a pound of pasta in that pot, seasoning it is less cooking and more wishful stirring.
• Grate the Parmesan yourself if you can. The bagged kind is dusted with starch so it doesn’t clump, and that starch goes slightly gritty in a cream sauce. It’s a small difference and I notice it every time.
• If the top won’t brown, give it 2 to 3 minutes under the broiler. Stand there and watch it the entire time. Broilers are not to be trusted.

Fridge: 4 days in an airtight container.

Reheating: This dries out faster than most casseroles, because the pasta keeps drinking whatever sauce is left. Stir in a splash of milk or broth first, cover it, and warm it at 325°F for about 20 minutes. For a single portion, microwave it covered with a spoonful of milk stirred through.

Freezer: 3 months, baked or unbaked. Details are in the make ahead section above.