Name: Open Faced Turkey Sandwich Melt
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 8 min
Total time: 13 min
Ingredients: 1 piece thick cut bread (sourdough is the best! ); 1 tbsp mayo ((optional)); 2 -3 tbsp cranberry sauce; 1/2 cup turkey (or enough to cover the bread); 2 - 3 tbsp turkey stuffing; 1-2 thick slices cheese ((gruyere, monterey jack, fontina, brie)); 4 tbsp turkey gravy; more cranberry sauce if you like on top

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Our open faced turkey sandwich melts are the best way to use up leftover turkey! Our family looks forward to the turkey melts every bit as much as the turkey dinner.

Why We Love this Sandwich

It’s like turkey dinner in every bite but maybe even a bit better!
It’s easier to make than a grilled sandwich, but still has awesome melted cheese
It’s easy to make a lot of these at once because you just build them and cook them in the oven. A whole bunch can be made at once.
Have I mentioned how good these are????!!!

After turkey dinner is done and you have 10 lbs of turkey left over, our favorite thing to do with it is to make open faced turkey sandwich melts. I think turkey sandwiches are pretty typical of most families, but there is nothing typical about this turkey melt….

What Goes in this Sandwich

So this is how we like to make our open faced turkey sandwiches. In this order:

a thick piece of slightly toasted bread – sourdough is the best!
a little mayonnaise spread on the bread – you don’t have to use this, but we like it
cranberry sauce spread on the bread – try our homemade cranberry sauce recipe made with a touch of bourbon! Its soooooo good!!
thick smokey bacon
then turkey stuffing – check out our turkey stuffing recipe, its sooooo good!
pile on the leftover turkey next
follow with a nice thick layer of cheese – we like gruyere or monterrey jack – you can use whatever you like
top it with gravy and more cranberry sauce when it comes out of the oven all hot and bubbly.

SO. DAMN. GOOD!

Other Ingredients You Could Build a Turkey Melt With

mashed potatoes
pan fried brussels sprouts
onions

Its honestly insane how good this is! I hope you have some turkey left to try it. If you don’t, you might just want to make another. Just saying…

Our families turkey dinners usually end in everyone holding their bellies and crying about how much their tummies hurt. But after a couple martinis and a card game or two, someone usually gets up and makes themselves a turkey sandwich.

Thanks to our ability to refrain a little at dinner, Debbie and I are usually the first ones. When this happens, anyone who’s stomach isn’t still in pain, usually gets up for one too. They just look too good to resist!

Why An Open Faced Sandwich?

You can use two pieces of bread if you would rather, but we like it open faced so that we can eat more of the good parts and less of the bread.

Plus we like to really taste the cheese melted on everything so open faced is the only way to go for that!

Could You Make this a Grilled Turkey Sandwich?

Sure you could!

So if I was making this a grilled sandwich, I think I would add extra cheese. So there is cheese close to both pieces of bread. Then I would butter both outsides of the bread and grill in a pan or panini maker.

Grill on low so that all the insides get nice and warm and the cheese melts all over without getting the outsides too browned and too crispy. I like the outsides of my grilled sandwiches to be buttery and crispy, but not too crispy!

If you aren’t able to think about eating a turkey sandwich for at least 12 hours after dinner, I understand lol! But I’m sure that 10 lbs of turkey will make you many a open faced turkey sandwich in the days to come.

Other Sandwich Recipes You Might Like:

Pulled Pork Sandwiches
Short Rib Sandwiches – one of our all time favs
Sliced Steak Sandwiches

If you’ve tried this open faced turkey sandwich recipe then don’t forget to rate the recipe and let us know how it turned out in the comments below. We love hearing from you!

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