Thanksgiving
2220 recipes found
Pan-Fried Collard Greens
Collard greens are a mainstay of Liberian cuisine, brought to the country from the United States by formerly enslaved Africans. Here is a classic Liberian preparation that’s spicy with habaneros (Liberia is known for being the “Pepper Coast” of Africa), and rich with the flavors of ham, turkey and chicken. Each meat brings a distinct taste, creating the base for a gravy that you’ll want to spoon over rice. This is one of those vegetable dishes that’s hearty enough to be a main, whether it’s for Thanksgiving — which is celebrated in Liberia with foods like this one — or any other gathering.
Stuffing Dumpling Soup
Smash it up with eggs and flour, and leftover stuffing transforms into a tender dumpling dough. A simple bone broth made from your turkey carcass creates a savory base, which you then load up with kale and sweet potatoes for a hearty, healthy post-Thanksgiving meal. If you prefer to roll your dumplings into visually perfect balls, leave out the 1/3 cup turkey stock for a sturdier dough, but if you don’t mind a rustic look, that additional moisture ensures a lighter dumpling.
Liberian Chicken Gravy
A staple of Liberian cuisine, this chicken tastes complex with its mix of spicy heat and richness, but comes together simply in just one pan. For the chef Thalmus Hare and other Liberians, this dish is part of the Thanksgiving table. (Liberia is one of the only countries outside the United States to celebrate Thanksgiving.) Peppers are staples in Liberian cuisine, and this recipe incorporates two kinds: sweet red bell peppers and more fiery habaneros. They’re a satisfying counterbalance to the intense chicken flavor that’s supercharged by both broth and Maggi seasoning. This shares similarities with Liberian pepper chicken, another popular dish, but is much saucier.
Jamaican-Spiced Turkey
When Francine Turone hosted her first Thanksgiving dinner in New York City, she declared turkey “bland and boring.” But after friends protested, she came up with this recipe inspired by her upbringing in Kingston, Jamaica. This turkey, a showstopping centerpiece for any big family event, roasts on a bed of whole vegetables, which absorb its fat. A deeply spiced brine and rub packed with cinnamon, allspice berries, thyme and chile pepper imparts huge flavors, rounded out by an herb-infused brown butter. If things are looking to be busy, the butter and rub can be prepared a day ahead.
Stuffing Panzanella With Cranberry Vinaigrette
The best way to reheat leftover stuffing? Press it into a pan, cut it into cubes and fry it in oil until crisp. The exterior browns and caramelizes, while the inside remains tender and creamy, just like the best bread pudding. This trick works best with stuffing made from smaller pieces of bread, but even if you don’t end up with perfect cubes, they will still be delicious. Serve them warm, on top of a fresh, raw salad tossed in a tangy cranberry-mustard vinaigrette, with fried pepitas running throughout for even more crunch. If you use a homemade cranberry sauce for the dressing, you may want to sweeten it with a touch of honey.
Wild Rice With Mushrooms
In Wisconsin, wild rice is truly wild, not cultivated as in other states, the tassels rising and swaying over rivers, lakes and floodplains come late August and September. Called manoomin by the local Chippewa, it is a protected crop that can be harvested only by state residents holding a valid license. And only by hand, as the Chippewa have always done, using wooden flails gently (the grains should fall from the stalk without great effort) from canoes propelled by paddles or push poles. Shellie Holmes of Rhinelander, Wis., who shares her recipe here, likes to cook wild rice just until it pops open. This is a break with her family’s tradition, which favored a chewier texture and did not allow popping. “Do not mix with other rice,” she urged, lest you lose the flavor of the wild.
Lemon Cakes
In the “A Song of Ice and Fire” book series (later known on television as “Game of Thrones”), George R.R. Martin devotes a lot of ink to lemon cakes, a favorite of the Lady of Winterfell Sansa Stark. The cakes have since become a pop culture totem for fans of the series. This recipe is inspired by a version found in “A Feast of Ice and Fire: The Official Game of Thrones Companion Cookbook” by Chelsea Monroe-Cassel and Sariann Lehrer. You don’t need to be a fan of “Game of Thrones” to love these cookielike treats, which are dense in texture, bright in flavor and boast a tart-sweet lemon glaze. The cakes are easy to throw together for a potluck or to satisfy a teatime craving.
Purê de Mandioca (Creamy Yuca Purée)
For some Brazilians in the United States, yuca purée takes the place of mashed potatoes on the Thanksgiving table. In Brazil, where yuca is indigenous and abundant, the root vegetable is often peeled, boiled and mashed. Milk and butter make the purée rich and creamy. This recipe was provided by Thailine Kolb, who learned the dish from her mother, Liomar dos Santos Paula Araujo. In Brazil, her mother serves the dish at Christmas, but Mrs. Kolb, who lives in New Haven, Conn., has embraced it as a Thanksgiving tradition. You can use fresh or frozen yuca, with similar results. If using fresh, be careful when cutting the firm vegetable and removing the outer bark. When using fresh or frozen yuca, be sure to remove and discard the starchy core before eating.
Mochi Rice Stuffing
Thanksgiving dinner in Hawaii may start with pineapple-Vienna-sausage skewers and litchis stuffed with cream cheese. Later there is turkey and ham, but also Spam fried rice and Filipino lumpia, maybe poke (sashimi salad), laulau (ti-leaf-wrapped meat or fish) and a Molokai sweet potato pie topped with haupia (coconut pudding). It is the crazy-quilt, all-embracing nature of the feast that makes it local-kine — that is, island-style. Lara Mui Cowell of Honolulu offers this recipe from her popo (maternal grandmother), Jannie Luke Thom, a second-generation Chinese-American who was born in Hawaii before it became a state. The dish is a Chinese take on Western-style sage stuffing, swapping out bread crumbs for mochi rice and adding lap cheong (Chinese sausage) and char siu (Chinese barbecue pork). But in true Hawaiian style, you may substitute Portuguese sausage — or even Spam.
Hmong Egg Roll Stuffing
One Thanksgiving, the pastry chef Diane Yang’s parents, Hmong refugees from Laos, found that they had filling left over from making egg rolls, and her mother came up with the idea of using it to stuff the turkey. It's lighter than traditional bread stuffing, and yields relatively small servings, but it's a delicious addition to the feast. It is not intended to be baked alongside the turkey. If you'd like, double this recipe and use the remainder to fill egg rolls. Purchase egg roll wrappers (often found in the freezer section at the market), thaw them, and roll them with stuffing. Deep fry in vegetable oil until golden brown, and serve hot.
Cheesy Bread Balls in Tomato Sauce
It’s hard not to love this combination of tomato sauce, melted cheese, bread balls and garlic oil, which is sort of like a pizza, deconstructed. If you prefer not to stuff the bread balls, you can skip that part and simply roll them until round, baking them in the same way. The extra cheese can then be added to the sauce around the bread balls just before broiling. This dough method isn’t complicated, but you could work with store-bought pizza dough to save on time.
Persimmon Pudding
Wild persimmons start to blush along the country roads of Indiana in late September, stealing the colors of sunset and weighing down their trees like Christmas balls. They are native to the landscape, unlike the Chinese and Japanese varieties cultivated in California and found in grocery stores. Foraging carries on through November, when the fruit claims a place at the Hoosier Thanksgiving table in the form of a dark gold pudding, distant kin to the sweet persimmon bread offered to early colonials by the Cherokee. This recipe comes from Alverta S. Hart of Mitchell, Ind. This fall, the town hosted its annual Persimmon Festival and as always, the most suspenseful event was the persimmon pudding contest. Ms. Hart submitted her first pudding in 1962 as an 18-year-old bride, and re-entered every year for nearly four decades until she became a judge, then chairwoman of the event, winning on and off and collecting every color of ribbon along the way.
Southern Macaroni and Cheese
There is macaroni and cheese, and then there is special occasion macaroni and cheese like this one. Unlike most recipes, which start with a roux, this one begins with a milk-and-egg base, which gives the dish an incredibly rich, silky taste. It’s adapted from Millie Peartree, the owner of Millie Peartree Fish Fry & Soul Food restaurant in the Bronx, who has been making this dish since she was a little girl. The recipe was passed down in her family for generations, but because of the generous amount of cheese used, the dish was only made for events like Christmas and Thanksgiving. Extra-sharp Cheddar adds tartness and a layer of Colby Jack creates a gooey, molten center. If you can’t find a Colby Jack blend, shredded mozzarella or a Mexican-style blend will work in its place.
Cherry-Lemon Cream Jell-O Mold
This jiggly, layered mold holds a base of clear crimson (sweet cherry) and a topping of ivory white (tangy lemon mixed with sour cream). If you have extra time, you could make it into four layers, producing red and ivory stripes. Garnished with shiny green leaves like bay or holly, it looks especially festive, and is also quite delicious. Swapping out some of the water in the Jell-O formula for ingredients like sour cream and cherry juice gives this dessert its bright taste.
Ginger Beer-Glazed Butternut Squash With Gremolata
While most winter squash recipes call for roasting the firm vegetable until nutty and caramelized, this recipe highlights the vegetable’s creamy texture and sweet notes by simmering it in ginger beer until supple. Like many glazed recipes, this one showcases the beauty of great timing: When the squash is done cooking, the liquid will have reduced to a glossy sauce (provided you’ve cut the squash into 1-inch pieces). Topping the mixture with a confetti-like gremolata of chopped ginger, garlic, parsley and orange zest turns this into a cold-weather side that sparkles.
Russian Salmon Pie
The Russians call it kulebyaka, but in Alaska it is pirok, perok or peroche — all amendments of pirog, the more general Russian word for pie. Inside the flaky crust, wild salmon from Alaskan waters is layered with rice and cabbage, crops introduced to the 18th-century natives of Kodiak Island by fur traders from across the strait. Long after the Russians gave up the hunt for sea otter pelts and sold their claim to the territory to the United States, the frontier fish-camp dish remained a staple of the Alaskan table. Kirsten Dixon, the chef and an owner of Winterlake Lodge, along the Iditarod Trail, and Tutka Bay Lodge, near Homer, likes to make salmon pie at Thanksgiving, when the Alaskan back country is already muffled in snow and guests arrive by ski plane, landing on a frozen lake.
Roasted Mushrooms With Smoky Pomegranate Sauce
For the very best roasted mushrooms, this recipe employs a steam-roast method, which allows the mushrooms to caramelize and crisp while retaining a surprising amount of moisture. They’re tossed on a sheet pan with olive oil, poultry seasoning and granulated onion for flavor, then covered tightly with foil and set in the oven to steam in their own juices until tender. Finally, they’re broiled just until their edges crisp, and their natural essence becomes more concentrated with deep nutty notes. An easy pan sauce made with pomegranate juice, peppercorns and ancho chile provides a burst of tanginess and brilliant color — and it is easily made vegan with the use of vegan butter.
Strawberry Cream Pie With Chocolate Cookie Crust
A chocolate cookie crust makes this strawberries-and-cream pie taste a bit like Neapolitan ice cream, but other crumbly cookies or sweet crackers work too. The best strawberries have a heady scent — they should smell like candy — and likely won’t need sweetening. But strawberry sweetness varies greatly, so taste one and toss them all with a little sugar as needed.
Buttermilk-Brined Roast Turkey
With only two ingredients — buttermilk and salt — this might be the least complicated turkey brine recipe ever. The trickiest step will be pulling out your kitchen scale to weigh out the salt, but it's worth doing if you can to ensure a properly seasoned turkey. The acid in the buttermilk leads to moist, tender meat throughout, while the sugars result in a gorgeous golden-brown skin. This turkey is spatchcocked, which might sound like a lot, but it’s just another way to simplify the recipe: By removing the backbone before brining, you’ll be able to fit the turkey, placed in a 2-gallon plastic resealable bag, in the fridge more easily. And you’ll get a lot more of that beautiful lacquered skin in about half the cooking time. It’s a total win-win situation. Just make sure you don’t skimp on the brining time; 48 hours is essential to make sure the bird gets seasoned through and through. (Watch the video of Samin Nosrat preparing the turkey here.)
Pumpkin Cream-Cheese Muffins
The little bits of cream cheese in these warmly spiced pumpkin muffins make for a rich and creamy treat that’s sweet and a little savory. The streusel on top is optional, but worth giving a try: It takes only a few minutes to put together, and adds an extra boost of cinnamon and a crisp texture to the top. Enjoy these muffins warm with a cup of tea for the perfect fall snack.
Golden Ginger Cake
Not your traditional gingerbread, this cake is flavored with familiar spices and enhanced with freshly grated ginger. (And yes, of course, there is still molasses.) Unlike a brittle cookie or dense loaf, this cake has the texture of what can only be described as a very good cake doughnut, crunchy on the outside and delightfully fluffy on the inside. It’s best served just warmed, with a generous helping of whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.
Braised Mustard Greens
Mustard greens are a delectable option for the simplest weeknight meal or the grandest holiday table. Though they’re from the same plant family as collard greens, mustard greens are more peppery and the cooked leaves are more tender. (They also cook down a lot more, so it takes a lot of mustard greens to make a decent serving amount!) This recipe is generous with the liquid, because as it cooks it becomes something just as delicious as the greens themselves: pot likker. Smoked meats are often used for their flavor, but a small amount of liquid smoke keeps this recipe meat-free. Be sure to serve your greens in a bowl, so you can slurp up the resulting pot likker afterward.
Spiced Pumpkin Cookie Cake
Two spiced shortbread cookies are soaked with a little coffee, then layered with a light pumpkin whipped cream in this rich, elegant icebox cake. You don’t need to be precious with the cookies or the cream while preparing them — they're fairly foolproof — yet they come together into a stunning make-ahead dessert. If you don’t have pumpkin pie spice but have a relatively well stocked spice cabinet, you can make your own homemade version (see Tip).
Buttermilk-Brined Turkey Breast
The proven alchemy of a salt-and-buttermilk brine does wonders for the often-dry roast turkey breast. The recipe is so easy, the trickiest step will be pulling out your kitchen scale to weigh out the salt. But it's worth doing if you can in order to ensure a properly balanced brine. Emerging from the oven with a beautiful lacquered skin and an incredibly moist and tender texture within, this roast is ideal for a scaled-down Thanksgiving meal, a cozy family dinner or to generate a stack of unbelievably tasty sandwiches.