Transform Christmas Leftovers with Ham & Cheese Sliders!

If you have Christmas ham and turkey leftovers, make use of them in the most delicious way! These ham and cheese sliders are the perfect low fuss lunch. Perfect for lunch while relaxing by the pool or in front of the tv.

I've been so excited to make these ham and cheese sliders ever since I had planned a ham for Christmas. This year we had half a leg of ham and there was enough for a Christmas Friendsmas dinner with enough left over to make a ham platter on Christmas Eve and to make these sliders for a Christmas Day or Boxing Day lunch!

Reasons To Make These Ham and Cheese Sliders

1 - They use up a lot of ham and turkey but make enough to serve 6 people 2 sliders each.

2 - This also uses up cranberry sauce which we often have excess of.

3 - You can use any sort of soft bun you like. These buttermilk slider buns were from Costco but use whatever soft bun you like. A lot of bakeries sell dinner rolls that are attached.

4 -These sliders are versatile - leave out the ham or turkey or omit the cranberry sauce if you don't like it! Try using pesto instead of mayonnaise or cranberry sauce. Or switch out the poppy seeds for sesame seeds!

5 - You can freeze these sliders before baking them. Just wrap them well and thaw them in the fridge overnight.

6 - Also if you have a ham bone don't throw it away! Try this double pea and ham soup replacing the ham hock with your ham bone. Last year I had the ham bone in my freezer for 6 months and pulled it out to make a soup when winter started. It felt good to use up as much of the ham as we could.

We had carved ham on Friendsmas as well as on Christmas Eve and I used up the rest of the ham on the sliders that I brought to a Christmas Day celebration yesterday. We headed to Mr NQN's sister Araluen's house for a family celebration. She and her fiancé Ben and her daughter Aura were holding a big get together with Ben's family and the Elliotts. She used to have everyone in her garden but the neighbour cut down the tree and it was too sunny and hot so she moved it all indoors.

It was chaos of the classic Christmas kind. There were lots of kids running around and adults arriving with boxes of gifts. To add to the commotion Araluen was looking after two cavoodles and encouraged us to bring along Teddy and Milo for a play date. All four dogs were obsessed with their guinea pigs and became instant pals and ran from the front to the back of the house weaving between long human legs.

The biggest hit was the karaoke microphone that Araluen had bought her daughter Aura. It connected to your phone so after the mains we had a round of Christmas karaoke of varying degrees of success but all delivered with the utmost enthusiasm. Ben's brother is a karaoke master (literally, that's his job) and a great singer and he decided to sing a Christmas heavy metal song. Then there were requests for all of the classic Christmas songs.

Mr NQN's father Roger (who had just arrived from Thailand the day before) grabbed the microphone and belted out the songs as loudly as he could. Then he performed a gangly legged dance for everyone. Then it came time to open up a bag aka a Santa sack full of bubble wrapped gifts for everyone. It was a mix of kitchen trinkets to accessories - all very normal until people realised that he ended up giving the small kids some switchblade tools!

So tell me Dear Reader, what did you end up doing for Christmas? Do you have many Christmas leftovers?

Ham & Cheese Sliders

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Cooking time: 20 minutes

Serves: 6 (2 buns per person)

• 12 dinner or slider buns (mine were 567g/1.25lbs)
• 500g/1.1lbs sliced ham
• 300g/10.6ozs sliced turkey
• 12 slices Swiss cheese
• 100g/3.5ozs cranberry sauce
• 100g/3.5ozs mayonnaise
• 75g/2.7ozs butter, melted
• 2 tablespoons dried onion powder
• 1 tablespoon poppyseeds
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper

Step 1 - Find a large baking tray with sides to fit your buns. Preheat oven to 160C/320F fan forced. Slice the buns in half horizontally keeping them attached if you can. Spread one half with cranberry sauce, the other half with mayonnaise. Then layer ham, turkey and cheese. Place the tops back on and place in the baking tray.

Step 2 - Whisk the melted butter with the poppyseeds, mustard, onion powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper until it becomes emulsified. Brush over the tops of the buns and down the sides. Bake uncovered for 15 minutes. If the buns are browning too much cover with foil and bake for another 10 minutes or until all of the cheese is melted. Serve warm.