Can You Freeze Cooked Turkey? How to Pack It and How Long

Yes, you can freeze cooked turkey, and it is the best thing to do with Thanksgiving leftovers you won’t eat by Monday. Carve the meat off the bone, cool it within 2 hours of the meal, pack it in portions with a little broth or gravy, squeeze out the air and freeze it. For the best texture, use it within about a month. Extension charts allow 2 to 3 months, and it stays safe longer at 0°F; what you lose is quality. Freeze it early. University of Illinois Extension says plainly: “Do not wait until the turkey has been in the refrigerator for 4 days to freeze it.”

This post covers the frozen case. If you are deciding what can sit in the fridge until the weekend, our Thanksgiving leftovers chart has the item-by-item fridge times.

How long does cooked turkey last in the freezer?

The loaded sources don’t agree on one number, so here is all of it:

• University of Illinois Extension’s turkey FAQ: “Leftover turkey, stuffing and gravy should be used within one month after freezing.”
• The same extension’s storing-leftovers chart gives cooked turkey “up to 2 to 3 months”, and so does Cornell Cooperative Extension’s holiday leftovers chart.
• Illinois Extension’s general freezer storage page lists cooked poultry at 4 to 6 months.

We go with the shortest: plan to eat it within about a month, and treat 2 to 3 months as the outer edge for anything you forgot about. Every one of those figures is about quality, not safety. The freezer storage page puts it this way: food kept frozen at 0°F “will always be safe as long as it hasn’t thawed.” Turkey that has sat at the back of the freezer since last November isn’t dangerous. It is dry and tastes of the freezer, and that is the reason to use it sooner.

How to freeze cooked turkey, step by step

1. Carve it off the bone. The Illinois FAQ says to “cut turkey off the bone and refrigerate or freeze all leftovers.” Bones take up freezer space and slow the freezing down.
2. Get it cold within 2 hours. The two-hour rule starts when dinner comes out of the oven, not when the table is cleared. Shallow containers in the fridge first if you can’t freeze it straight away.
3. Portion it by use. One bag of sliced breast for sandwiches, one of chopped dark meat for soup, one of shredded meat for a casserole. A bag the size of one dinner thaws faster and never needs to be refrozen.
4. Add moisture. Two or three tablespoons of broth or gravy per portion. Lean breast meat frozen bare comes out dry.
5. Push the air out. Lay gallon freezer bags such as Ziploc Gallon Freezer Bags flat, squeeze the air out from the bottom up, seal, and freeze them flat on a tray. Once they are solid, stand them up like files.
6. Leave headspace in rigid containers. For turkey in gravy or soup, the Illinois FAQ says to “leave one-inch headspace in containers with liquid and 1/2-inch in containers with semisolids,” because liquid expands as it freezes.
7. Label and date it. “Turkey, dark, 2 cups, Nov 27” is the label that gets the bag used. A bag with no label is still in there in March.

Air is what causes freezer burn: “white dried-out patches on the surface of food that make it tough and tasteless”, in the FAQ’s words. Cornell’s chart notes that freezer-burned food is safe to eat, so trim the dry spots off before reheating rather than throwing the bag out.

What freezes well from the Thanksgiving table

The turkey is rarely the only leftover. Here is the rest of the table, with each freezer time taken from the extension charts above. Where they differ, we print the shorter figure.

Leftover	Freezer time (best quality)	How to pack it
Sliced or chopped turkey	About 1 month (charts allow 2 to 3)	Off the bone, flat bags, a spoonful of broth
Turkey in gravy or a casserole	About 1 month	Rigid container, 1/2-inch headspace
Gravy	About 1 month (charts allow 2 to 3)	Container with 1 inch headspace, or 1-cup blocks
Stuffing	1 month	Flat in a bag, or right in a foil pan, wrapped well
Turkey stock from the carcass	2 to 4 months	1-cup blocks or containers with 1 inch headspace
Mashed potatoes	About 2 months	See our mashed potato freezing guide
Cranberry sauce	1 to 2 months	Small container, 1/2-inch headspace
Pumpkin pie	1 to 2 months	Whole or by the slice, wrapped tightly
Apple pie (baked)	1 to 2 months	Wrapped, then in a bag
Bread and rolls	2 to 3 months	Heavy-duty freezer bag
Green bean casserole	Don’t freeze	Illinois Extension: “Do not store in freezer”

Gravy and stock freeze best in measured blocks. Souper Cubes 1-cup trays make portions that pop out into a pan; once they are frozen, move the blocks to a bag and the tray is free again. For mashed potatoes, the method (fat, portion size and reheating from frozen) is in our guide to freezing mashed potatoes.

Cornell’s chart lists pumpkin pie as freezable but marks other baked custard pies “not recommended”, so check which one you have. Freeze a pumpkin pie plain and add any whipped cream after it thaws.

Does it matter how you froze it?

Yes, more than the date does. Three things make the difference between frozen turkey you’ll actually use and turkey you’ll throw out:

• White meat needs liquid; dark meat is forgiving. Thighs and legs have the fat to come through freezing well. Breast meat dries out fast, so give it the broth or freeze it in gravy.
• Small pieces beat a big one. A half breast frozen whole takes a long time to freeze and a long time to thaw. Slice or chunk it first, unless you want to reheat it in one piece for a second roast dinner.
• Freeze it in the dish you’ll use. Turkey already chopped into a pot pie filling, soup or enchilada sauce comes back better than plain meat ever does, because the sauce protects it.

Thawing and reheating frozen turkey

Thaw it in the fridge overnight. Illinois Extension’s thawing guidance also allows the microwave, but food thawed that way “must be finished cooking immediately”, and the page warns against leaving food out at room temperature for 2 hours or longer. Turkey frozen in sauce can go straight into a simmering pot from frozen.

Then reheat it to 165°F, which is the minimum on Illinois Extension’s leftovers page. The best way to keep it moist, covered with broth in a low oven, is in our post on how to reheat a cooked turkey. Check the thickest piece with an instant-read thermometer rather than by feel.

On refreezing: the thawing page says meat thawed in the refrigerator “can be refrozen without cooking, though its quality will degrade.” With cooked turkey, that second freeze costs a lot of texture. That is the real reason to freeze it in dinner-sized bags in the first place.

FAQ

Can you freeze cooked turkey after 3 days in the fridge?

Yes, if it went into the fridge within 2 hours and stayed cold. Cooked turkey keeps 3 to 4 days in the fridge, and freezing it inside that window is fine. Earlier is better: Illinois Extension says not to wait until day four, because freezing keeps the quality you have but does not restore any.

Can you freeze turkey that has been reheated?

Safe Plates at NC State, in its Thanksgiving leftovers advice, says to reheat leftovers only once, so turkey that has already been reheated is best eaten or thrown out, not frozen. Freeze the portion you won’t eat before anything is reheated.

Can you freeze a whole cooked turkey?

It is better carved. A whole bird freezes and thaws slowly and takes up most of a freezer. The Illinois Extension advice is to take the meat off the bone first, and the carcass goes into a stock pot.

Is frozen cooked turkey good after 6 months?

It is safe if it stayed frozen at 0°F, but it will be dry and may taste of the freezer. Use it in soup, chili or a casserole, where the liquid hides the texture, rather than as sliced meat.