Thanksgiving recipes, side dishes, leftovers, and dinner-planning guides.
9 Thanksgiving side dish ideas that turn into the dish everyone asks about, from candied yams to au gratin potatoes, each linking to its own full recipe.
Wild rice stuffing with cranberries is a side dish made by simmering wild rice in stock until the grains split and go tender, then baking it with sautéed onion and celery, dried cranberries, toasted pecans, and fresh herbs until the top turns golden. I make some version of this every year starting in October, long
The best cranberry sauce substitutes are fresh cranberry relish, a quick orange marmalade thinned with a little water, or a cherry sauce made the same way you’d cook cranberries, since all three land close to the tart-sweet flavor and jammy texture people expect on the table. If you’re standing in your kitchen right now realizing
Garlic cauliflower mash is a low-carb mashed potato swap made by steaming cauliflower until fork-tender, draining and drying it thoroughly, then blending it with roasted garlic, butter, and a little cream cheese until smooth. I used to roll my eyes at cauliflower mash. My first attempt came out of the food processor looking more like
Green beans with crispy shallots means blanching fresh green beans until they’re bright and just tender, then topping them with thin shallot slices fried low and slow until deeply golden, no canned soup or tinned onions required. I grew up on the version with the cream of mushroom soup and the crunchy things from a
Cornbread dressing is crumbled, deliberately staled cornbread mixed with sautéed onion and celery, broth, eggs, and sage, then baked separately in its own dish rather than stuffed inside the turkey. Dressing and stuffing get used interchangeably by a lot of people, but they’re not the same thing. One goes inside the bird. One doesn’t. And
Turkey gravy is made by separating the fat from your turkey’s pan drippings, building a roux with that fat and flour, then whisking in the drippings and stock until thickened, with a make-ahead version possible using roasted turkey wings for the base. Gravy is the one part of Thanksgiving that has to happen in the
Sweet potato casserole is a smooth, mashed sweet potato base baked until set, then topped with either mini marshmallows or a pecan streusel and browned in the oven, a distinctly different dish from candied yams, which keeps the sweet potato in whole sliced pieces. I used to think candied yams and sweet potato casserole were
Au gratin potatoes are thinly sliced potatoes layered with cream and cheese, usually gruyere or sharp cheddar, then baked until the potatoes are tender and the top is browned and bubbling, distinct from scalloped potatoes, which traditionally skip the cheese entirely. Most people use these two names interchangeably, and honestly, most recipes online do too.
Costco’s best Thanksgiving dinner buys this year are the Kirkland Signature turkey dinner kit for a stress-free main, the loaded mashed potatoes for the single best pre-made side, and the $5.99 pumpkin pie for dessert, while the full $199.99 complete dinner package is worth it only if you’re feeding a crowd and truly don’t want
Southern green beans are fresh green beans simmered low and slow in broth with bacon, ham hock, or smoked turkey for 45 minutes to an hour and a half, until they’re soft enough to fall apart on a fork, not crisp-tender. If you grew up on the quick-blanched, still-snappy version of green beans, this recipe
A Thanksgiving meal for 4 people typically runs between $30 and $90 depending on where you shop and what you buy, with a realistic mid-range spread landing around $50 to $55, or roughly $13 per person. That number surprised me the first year I actually sat down and added up a receipt instead of guessing.
Aldi comes out cheaper for most Thanksgiving staples, especially turkey, butter, and canned goods, while Walmart’s curated meal bundle prices out almost dead even with Aldi’s own bundle deal. I built the exact same Thanksgiving dinner shopping list at both stores last November, sixteen items, nothing fancy, just what actually ends up on a normal
A solid Thanksgiving dinner checklist breaks hosting into four stages: thawing and shopping three to five days out, make-ahead sides two days out, table setting and light prep the day before, and an hour-by-hour cooking schedule on the day itself that you build backward from your actual serving time, not forward from when you wake
Yes, you can freeze both turkey and stuffing after Thanksgiving, but turkey holds up in the freezer a lot better than stuffing does. I learned that the hard way a few years back when I froze a full container of leftover turkey and stuffing mixed together, thinking I was saving myself a step. Big mistake.