I love leftovers because you can eat in basically the amount of time it takes to heat them up. To me, that’s magic! But, as much as I love eating leftovers as is, I am absolutely fanatical about making leftovers into new dishes, like these Thanksgiving croquettes.

What’s not to love about deep fried potato-y things? Croquettes are French, from the verb croquer, which is to crunch. Interesting right?! I don’t know random food knowledge by the way, I just like googling things. Anyway, croquettes might have started out French but I’m pretty sure that every culture has a version of croquettes because deep fried foods are popular the world over. Japan is no exception. Croquettes are called korokke here and they are ubiquitous as fried chicken in supermarkets/convenience stores. There are even dedicated korokke stores.

I absolutely love Japanese korokke, with their creamy mashed potato insides and crispy crunchy panko-ed outsides. I took a page from the korokke book and made Thanksgiving croquettes: leftover mashed potatoes, turkey, and stuffing. A quick toss into flour, egg, and panko and a hot oil bath later and these guys were definitely bestovers. Everything I love about turkey dinner turned into a convenient hand held tater tot shaped deep-fried bite. I loved them with a bit of cranberry sauce, but they were also excellent with tonkatsu sauce. Seriously good!