This Turkey Tetrazzini recipe is the perfect way to enjoy leftover turkey. Tender turkey chunks, mushrooms and pasta are smothered in a rich and creamy sauce and topped with cheese. Everything is baked until hot and bubbly for a dish hearty enough to satisfy a crowd and tasty enough to get everyone excited about leftovers like never before.
© SpendWithPennies.com
Turkey Tetrazzini is one of those recipes that has been around forever and ever and yet another recipe found in my vintage recipe box.
A delicious pasta casserole with turkey in a creamy mushroom sauce is topped with cheese and baked until hot and bubbly.
Serve this up with a garden salad and some crusty bread for a perfect meal!
I use fresh mushrooms in this recipe and you can add in any other veggies you’d lke, carrots, peas, and peppers are some of our favorites.
This easy tetrazzini recipe uses no “cream of” soup but instead gets some extra richness from spreadable cream cheese. While you can certainly use the plain variety, we love to use an herb and garlic or garlic and chive flavor to add a little bit of extra flavor.
This is a great recipe for making use of the leftover turkey around the holidays, but it is equally delicious year round. If you don’t have turkey on hand, you can use rotisserie chicken or cook up a couple of chicken breasts!
This dish reheats well so you can make it ahead of time or serve it another night for a delicious dinner of leftovers! Make sure to cook the pasta al dente so it doesn’t get mushy and if needed, add a little splash of milk when reheating.
REPIN THIS RECIPE HERE
Ingredients
- 12 ounces spaghetti
- 3 tablespoons salted butter
- 1 onion diced
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- 12 ounces mushrooms sliced
- 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 2 ¼ cups reduced sodium chicken broth
- 8 ounces spreadable cream cheese garlic flavor
- 1 ⅓ cups half and half or light cream
- salt and black pepper to taste
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- 2 cups cooked chopped turkey
- 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese divided
- ¼ cup shredded Parmesan cheese
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Cook spaghetti al dente according to package directions.
- Cook butter, onions and garlic over medium heat until softened. Add mushrooms and cook an additional 3 minutes. Stir in flour and cook 1 minute.
- Add broth and cream all at once. Cook until thick & bubbly, let boil 1 minute. Stir in cream cheese until melted. Add parsley and seasonings
- Combine spaghetti, turkey, 1 cup of mozzarella cheese and sauce. Pour into a greased 9×13 pan. Top with remaining mozzarella, cover and bake 20 minutes. Sprinkle with parmesan and bake an additional 10-15 minutes uncovered until hot & bubbly.
Nutrition Information
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
Course Main Course
Cuisine Italian© SpendWithPennies.com. Content and photographs are copyright protected. Sharing of this recipe is both encouraged and appreciated. Copying and/or pasting full recipes to any social media is strictly prohibited. Please view my photo use policy here.
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Made this today. Totally a Keeper.
The best turkey tetrazzini I have ever made thank you so much
Turkey tetrazzini is one of my favorite ways to use turkey leftovers. I lost my favorite recipe in a house fire a few years ago and have been trying to find a decent replacement. This recipe
Is far better than any I’ve ever made…it’s a keeper for sure!
Delicious! Will definitely make again.
the best recipe I have ever made and tasted! also surprisingly simple to make. I made two small changes: one two enhance and another for my taste. first I upgraded the cheese by substituting a six cheese Italian blend from Safeway. second, I added black olives which other recipes have and I like. otherwise, I made this recipe exactly as written in. it turned out fantastic! thank you to the author!
No idea what happened…..followed the recipe but split among several pans and a casserole dish to cook. Very dry….wish it had more sauce!
If you split the recipe among several pans and baked it at the same temperature/time, this would dry the dish out.
Barbara
If you used 16oz of pasta it would have made the dish dry. It calls for 12 oz and I caught myself almost adding too much. Easy mistake
My husband doesn’t like mushrooms so I added green and red peppers, and celery.
everyone loved it! favorite Thanksgiving leftover turkey recipe!
Ok this is absurdly delicious!! And indulgent! I added peas and fresh carrots – cooked the carrots with the onions. And no extra salt needed as our leftover deep-fried turkey was pretty salty. Otherwise did as directed. Very comforting and definitely 5 stars!! Thanks for the recipe!
So so good! Best turkey tettrazini I’ve ever had and will definitely put this on repeat; the family loved it. I think the flavored cream cheese is a gamechanger!
Note – I followed the recipe as-is and it did take me longer than the 10 minutes indicated.
absolutely delicious. used more turkey less pasta.
looks good
I had leftover Thanksgiving Turkey and this was a perfect way to make my husband happy to eat the leftovers! I’m not such a fan of Italian seasoning, otherwise this recipe is delicious! My peas and carrots mix didn’t fit in my casserole dish, so I cooked them separately and mixed them in with the recipe at the end. Yum.
This has our turkey tails waggin’! Delicious Thanksgiving leftovers recipe. Thank you! I used fettucine, because that’s what we had. I also added peas and broccoli, because I only had an 8 oz package of mushrooms. Recipe as written would still be awesome! Greatly appreciate having your recipes available.
I wanted to hate this dish but it was absolutely delicious! In all seriousness, with that much cheese and cream, we’ll make this indulgent dish several times a year — and it’s great for a crowd!
It did seem to take ages but that’s because I didn’t understand that the cream and broth mixture has thickened (it didn’t seem thick at all but it was thicker than when originally poured).
We made this exactly as the recipe was except that I added green onions and some garlic powder when I added the regular cream cheese I had (since I didn’t have an herbed cream cheese). Definitely one to make again and again!
This is a great recipe! I love that it doesn’t use any condensed cans of soup. The creamy gravy is the best. And I added the veg that our family loves the best. I also added a bread crumb topping for extra decadent crunch. I look forward to using your other recipes!
I’ll admit I tweaked it to keep it more in line with a tetrazzini recipe I’ve been using for years. After sautéing the veggies and before adding the flour, I throw in a splash of dry vermouth or dry sherry and let it cook off. It adds a nice layer of flavor.
That said, I definitely prefer using the spreadable herb cheese versus plain cream cheese and thank you for the tip. It dissolves so much easier and the end result seems to have a much silkier texture than my old recipe. I believe that the mozzarella contributes to this as well; my old recipe used lots of grated parmesan in the mixture as well as on the topping mixed with panko bread crumbs, which always made it seem a bit dry.
I was using up Thanksgiving leftovers and doubled the recipe ingredients, and also added several stalks of celery and I used two 16-ounce packs of spaghetti rather than 12-ounce because it’s what I had on hand and 32 ounces of white mushrooms rather than 24. There was plenty of sauce to cover the ingredients and I ended up with two 9×13″ casseroles and an additional 9×9″ casserole which I gifted to neighbors and family.
I will definitely follow this recipe in the future and probably add some peas, which I didn’t happen to have this time around.
Very good without the spaghetti. Added broccoli florets. Used leftover stuffing as a crust. Delicious!
This recipe is amazing! I had extra turkey gravy and put that in aswell. This is our favorite recipe for left over turkey. So good.
Turned out great! The family loved it!