Photo by Chris Granger.

If your holiday feast includes a turkey, you’re in for a treat on the day of your big celebration. And if you’re resourceful and appreciate eating “nose-to-tail” eating, you’ll also benefit in the days following — because you’ve got the makings for many delicious dishes to come.

Every part of the turkey (whether it’s roasted, smoked, or fried), from the carcass, giblets, and necks, to legs and leftover meat, offers the opportunity to add richness, flavor, and extra protein to dishes like gumbo, beans, chili, and more. Of course, the same philosophy applies to a holiday ham! From ham bones and ham hocks to shanks and meat, there are so many tasty ways to use the leftovers.

Check out some favorite recipes that use leftover holiday turkey and ham.

Pableaux’s Turkey Bone Gumbo

Pableaux Johnson of The Red Bean Road Show shares his personal turkey gumbo recipe. Delicious! Photo by Chris Granger.

Red Beans with Smoked Turkey Legs

Chef Isaac Woo of Catahoula Catering in Denver, Colorado is a Louisiana native who loves to make his red beans with smoked turkey legs.

Turkey Black Bean Pumpkin Chili

Hearty and comforting, this recipe makes good use of leftover holiday favorites like cooked, cubed turkey and solid-pack pumpkin.

Great Northern Beans & Ham

This tasty recipe comes courtesy of Chef Jennifer Hill Booker. Featuring diced ham and a large ham bone, it brings amazing flavor to white beans.

Simple Slow Cooker Blackeye Peas

This is a simple but delicious blackeye pea recipe made in the slow cooker, with a ham hock or diced ham. With no hands-on attention required, it’s a perfect post-holiday dish.

Simple Southern Lima Beans

A great recipe for deliciously creamy butter beans that’s sure to satisfy. Serve over hot cooked rice and alongside your favorite cornbread or biscuits.

It’s a simple truism in cooking that chicken stock makes everything taste better, and that includes your red beans and rice.

Why settle for using just water in your beans when this stock can add hints of chicken along with the delicious essences of an array of aromatic vegetables, herbs, and spices?

The Secret to the Stock: Bones

In chicken stock, it’s the bird’s bones that infuse the water with that extra-special flavor and mouthfeel, thanks to the gelatin that’s released during the simmering process. (Chicken stock is different from chicken broth in that the latter uses more meat than bones.)

Use as much chicken stock as you want in your beans. Even just a little should improve the overall taste of the final product. Or you can go all out and use stock entirely in the place of water.

Another great option: Use chicken stock, not water, as the liquid base for your rice.

And if it’s a truism that chicken stock makes everything better, then, naturally, homemade chicken stock trumps chicken stock out of a can or carton, or in a bouillon cube or powdered form.

Making Your Own Stock Is Simple

Whenever you have a whole chicken as a main meal, get into the habit of throwing the carcass — bones, skin, leftover meat, and all — into a stock pot or Dutch oven, then bring it to a boil along with some aromatic vegetables (such as onion, celery, carrots, garlic, leeks); herbs and spices (such as parsley, bay leaf, thyme, cloves, pepper, or anything that would go in a classic bouquet garni); along with, of course, water or even wine. The options are endless, and cookbooks are full of stock recipes. However, you probably don’t want to add salt to your stock-in-process because your chicken carcass, presumably, already contains sodium.

Let the stock simmer for several hours and then strain it, removing the fat and other particles along with the carcass. Store the broth in containers in your refrigerator or freezer to be used when needed. Obviously, freezing stock will make it last longer.

Stocks Come in Every Flavor

Stocks also can be made in similar fashion out of leftover seafood, fish, beef, veal, duck, game, or other meats for use in gumbos and other dishes. And if you’re a vegetarian, just leave out the meat and sauté your aromatic vegetables before starting the stock-making process.

If you don’t have the time or the inclination to make your own stock, try the premade products. Using a commercial version is better than using no stock at all. And in recent years, high-quality organic versions have become available, some marketed by celebrity chefs.

Red beans and rice already is the quintessential meal of south Louisiana. Adding chicken stock will add even more flavor dimensions that can only improve your final dish.