This is one of the most exciting recipes we’ve ever shared with you: Thanksgiving Pop Tarts. Yep, Thanksgiving Pop Tarts. It sounds odd, it’s very specific, but it’s incredibly delicious, and so much fun to make. We hope you keep reading and then cook these yummy treats as part of your next Thanksgiving celebration.
HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH THANKSGIVING POP TARTS?
In 2021, we wanted to share fun recipes for Thanksgiving. It’s been a long year (or two) and it felt like this Holiday was the time to relax and have a little fun. Particularly, we wanted to share some fun ideas on how to cook the inevitable heaping piles of leftovers after a Thanksgiving feast.
We put together this Thanksgiving Seven Layer Dip recipe and had time to film one more. Our initial plan failed. Failed terribly, and we were scrambling to come up with one more idea, and boom, out of nowhere, this idea hit us! We thought it would work, but with time running out on our recipe day, we didn’t have time to test the recipe before filming it.
You know what they say, don’t cook a recipe for the first time for guests, and you REALLY shouldn’t cook a recipe for the first time on camera. Well, we did it anyway, the results were outstanding, and high fives were shared around the production team. Thanksgiving Pop Tarts are 100% a go.
WHAT GOES INTO THANKSGIVING POP TARTS?
Everything delicious about Thanksgiving goes into Thanksgiving Pop Tarts, of course! We start with pie crust, then add these layers:
We start with pie crust and cut it into pop tart sized pieces – a slight egg wash keeps everything sticking together.
We then add our “fruit filling” by spreading cranberry sauce. We recommend chunky cranberry sauce for ease of spreading.
One top of the cranberries, we add a mixture of everything else that’s leftover: stuffing, corn, turkey, whatever!
We then close up the pop tart, poke some holes in top, and bake for a bit before…
…frosting our Thanksgiving Pop Tarts with mashed potatoes and mashed sweet potatoes and, of course, sprinkles!
Be sure to watch our recipe video on this page to see the full step by step instructions!
BE HONEST, IS THE FROSTING NECESSARY?
We all know the best part of pop tarts is the frosting, and it’s no different for these Thanksgiving Pop Tarts. The frosting makes them incredible. It’s 100% vital to have the frosting on top.
The plain mashed potatoes were good, but the mashed sweet potatoes were INCREDIBLE! They got crispy and caramelized and sweet and oh my goodness, they were so good. We could have possibly added torn up pieces of marshmallow on top as well for even more sweet deliciousness, but we know marshmallow on sweet potato is a divisive subject, so we committed them.
And, yes, you must add sprinkles on top of these Thanksgiving Pop Tarts, or they just aren’t festive enough!
DO I HAVE TO USE LEFTOVERS?
Of course not! We came up with Thanksgiving Pop Tarts to use up leftovers, but if you are feeling Thanksgiving, you can make these anytime of the year. We aren’t providing exact measurements on ingredients because it really is impossible to tell what we used and the recipe is intended to use up leftovers. However, you can easily make all the ingredients for this recipe.
CAN I MAKE MY OWN DOUGH?
Sure can! We used store bought pie crusts and cut them into pop tart sized pieces. This of course left edges that we didn’t use. If you’d prefer to make your own dough, that’s totally fine. We are partial to this recipe. We were short on time, and nothing is wrong with store bought, so that’s what we used for this recipe. It tasted great and was the perfect base for our Thanksgiving Pop Tarts.
Keep reading to see the step by step instructions on how to make our Thanksgiving Pop Tarts and, of course, you can watch the video to see exactly how we did it. Did you make any modifications to this recipe or add any ingredients that you think took the pop tarts to a new level? Let us know by leaving a comment below. We can’t wait to hear from you – Happy Thanksgiving!
