Thanksgiving
2220 recipes found
Umami Gravy
The last thing you want to do on Thanksgiving Day is rush to make a gravy from the turkey’s hot pan drippings while the rest of the dishes get cold. Instead, this make-ahead gravy, inspired by the one my friend Lauren Kuhn makes at her annual Friendsgiving, relies on a base of caramelized red onion and gets its body from flour, milk and vegetable stock. (Stock concentrate paste is an especially useful pantry staple to keep on hand to make stock quickly.) Nutritional yeast is an optional umami enhancer that adds nuance and a rich, cheesy depth. Keep this covered in the refrigerator until it’s ready to eat, then on Thanksgiving Day, reheat it on the stove or in the microwave. Drizzle it over everything.
Fancy Canned Cranberries
The ultimate high-low condiment your table didn’t know it was missing. These dressed-up canned cranberries become tart, juicy and a little bit savory thanks to some fresh citrus, thinly sliced red onion and a little flaky salt. With or without whole berries suspended in them? That’s dealer’s choice, but the rounds will be much easier to slice without them.
Chunky Cranberry Sauce
Of course, you could buy fresh cranberries and clean them carefully, but if you start with canned whole berry cranberry sauce and add some fresh ingredients, it will taste just as good!
Butterhorns
Butterhorns fall into two camps: savory or sweet. These are the latter, filled with a tender mince of nuts and topped with an almond-flavored frosting. Sweet butterhorns are a favorite of the in-house bakeries at the Bavarian Inn and Zehnder’s of Frankenmuth, the two big all-you-can-eat chicken dinner restaurants in Frankenmuth, Mich. This recipe comes from Dorothy Zehnder, a founder of the Bavarian Inn. Tucking in the corners of each butterhorn before rolling helps contain the filling during baking.
Mushroom Ragout ‘Gravy’
I never make gravy. Some people find that perplexing, but I don’t like it — there’s just too much fat involved. Instead, I make this mushroom ragout and spoon it over the turkey and on the side.
Mushroom and Gruyère Bread Pudding
Bread pudding is my go-to alternative to traditional stuffing, which tends to dry out your turkey. To make bread pudding, you need to dice the bread, season it and bake it until the cubes are nicely toasted. Here, I start with Pepperidge Farm Herb Seasoned cubed stuffing mix — be sure to buy the cubed mix! — and then add lots of fresh ingredients. Delicious bread pudding in half the time!
Caramelized Onion Galette
This rich, autumnal galette takes its inspiration from the flavors of French onion soup. Seasoned with Gruyère and lots of cracked black pepper, the galette dough takes the place of the crostini, and the caramelized onion filling is fortified with beef broth and sherry. The dish is great for entertaining — it can be prepared in advance — but requires a little bit of patience: You’ll need to let the dough rest for at least four hours, which allows the flour to hydrate and will make the dough less crumbly to work with. Let the tart rest for about 10 minutes before slicing and serving. Eat it while it’s hot or serve at room temperature alongside a salad or steak.
Roasted Butternut Squash With Brown Butter Vinaigrette
This roasted butternut squash is every bit as caramelized as you’d want it to be, without the prep work that’s usually involved. First, it’s cooked without being peeled: The skin is a crisp counterpart to the jammy interior. (If you do want to get rid of the peel, it tears away easily after roasting.) Then, it’s dressed with a vinaigrette made with brown butter, vinegar and dried chile. Mint is added for freshness and flaky salt for crunch, and you could also throw on some cheese — Parmesan, Gruyère, ricotta — for more richness. Serve the squash over sturdy salad greens, or add nuts or pepitas to the browning butter for more texture.
Apple Crisp
This warm dessert can quickly satisfy sweet tooth cravings, especially if you forgo peeling the apples, which adds a nice chewiness to the crunchy toasted topping and juicy, saucy apples. Choose a variety of apples, then adjust the amounts of sugar and lemon juice to strike the right tangy balance for the filling. Or customize your crisp by using your favorite spices and nuts. The dessert tastes particularly comforting hot out of the oven, with the caramelized apple juices bubbling around the nutty cookie-like clusters, but it’s just as good cold for breakfast the next day.
Cranberry Crumb Muffins
In these tender muffins, a crunchy topping adds nice textural contrast, and supertart cranberries keep the sweetness balanced. Fresh or frozen cranberries work well, but if using frozen cranberries, do not thaw them before they go into the batter. The batter may seem extra stiff from the cold berries, but it will bake up just fine. (They may need an extra minute or two in the oven.) Blueberries, raspberries, blackberries or a mix of the three would be lovely. If you use berries, you can expect some color streaking, but they will taste great. Chopped up in-season peaches or plums would be tasty, too. Use a spring-loaded ice cream scoop to portion muffin batter into the prepared pan: It’s easy, quick and helps to keep the muffins the same size.
Delicata Squash and Corn Fritters
These vegetable-packed fritters are crispy around the edges and tender in the center. Delicata squash has a thin skin that can be left on, adding color and a dose of nuttiness. Corn adds pops of sweetness, while moist zucchini helps bind the patties. Fragrant fried sage leaves do double duty in this dish: First they infuse the oil with herbaceous flavor, then they become a beautiful, crisp garnish. For the best results, fry the fritters and serve immediately; however, they can also be made a few hours ahead and reheated at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes until hot and crisp.
Cranberry Jelly Salad With Lime-Sugared Nuts
Chopped nuts and fruit bound by a wobbly sweet-tart gelatin, often called Jell-O salad in the Midwest, form a beloved side dish full of potential. Serve this gleaming cranberry variation at Thanksgiving or any holiday meal, and feel free to swap out the apple here for peeled and chopped oranges or canned diced pineapple, or use a mix of your favorite fruits. (Note that certain fruits like fresh pineapple, mango, kiwi and papaya contain enzymes that prevent gelatin from setting.) To make the lime-sugared walnut garnish even more surprising, toss it with a smidge of citric acid to give it an incomparable sourness that citrus juice alone can’t provide.
Pecan Sandie Pie
All the richness of pecans, buttery and crisp in the cookie crust, candied in the gooey filling, run through this pie. In this take on a Thanksgiving classic, standard pie dough is swapped for pecan sandie dough. It’s not only tastier with its nuttiness, it also doesn’t require rolling. You can simply pat it into the pan and into a round for the top. For a toastier flavor and a little more crunch, bake the pecans first in a 350-degree oven until fragrant and a shade darker.
Two-Tone Ginger Custard Pie
This silky, spiced custard is especially dreamy inside a crisp, flaky crust. Some custard pies use eggs as a binder — this one uses flour for a thick custard that always sets perfectly, creating a flat surface that’s ideal for a dusting of sugar. This striking design requires just a sheet of paper and a sifter, while the topping itself is ground freeze-dried mangoes and strawberries mixed with confectioners’ sugar. You can find the freeze-dried fruit at most grocery stores and health-food stores, where they are often grouped with the nuts and dried fruit. The pie can be made up to 1 day ahead, but for the cleanest look, it’s best to apply the sugar within 2 hours of serving; beyond that, the sugar will eventually absorb moisture from the pie and begin to change color. But even if you skip the topping, the filling is beyond delicious all on its own.
Glazed Ham
This is the ham that led directly to whatever childhood memory caused someone to combine ham and pineapple on a pizza. The sweet, slightly fiery and herbaceous crust on this salty haunch practically calls out for a garnish of caramelized pineapple, if not a spray of maraschino cherries. Others may reverse course and apply mustard. Either way, it is good to serve with a nutty wild rice or potatoes au grain, something with backbone.
Chili- and Cinnamon-Roasted Butternut Squash
Roasting butternut squash at a high temperature helps the sugars caramelize, bringing out a sweetness that pairs perfectly with fall flavors like cinnamon and cayenne. This recipe plays on the duality of butternut squash – its savory and sweet components. The ground cinnamon complements the caramelization, and the chili powder and cayenne play on the vegetable’s more savory profile. The cayenne also adds a kick, though you can omit it if you prefer to keep this dish’s heat limited to the more subtle chili powder.
Vegan Poblano Macaroni and Cheese
Making this plant-based dish might become a new holiday tradition in your house — and the recipe is fast and easy enough to become part of your weeknight rotation as well. It’s not your average macaroni and cheese as it has no actual cheese, but its creamy cashew sauce, stained green from smoky fire-roasted poblano chiles, is guaranteed to turn heads. The end result is sure to be piled high on everyone’s plates. To get vegetarian recipes like this one delivered to your inbox, sign up for The Veggie newsletter.
Turkey Barley Soup
This mellow, velvety soup filled with barley and vegetables is a perfect place for your leftover Thanksgiving turkey. Adapted from Cristiana N. de Carvalho of Massachusetts, it’s savory, herby and very warming on a cold winter evening. If you want to make your own stock from the turkey bones, the soup will be even richer. But store-bought stock works just as well and makes this straightforward recipe quick to put together. Brown rice makes an excellent barley substitute, though you may have to add a few minutes to the cooking time.
Stuffed Ham, Southern Maryland Style
There are as many recipes for southern Maryland stuffed ham as there are families in St. Mary’s County. It shows up on Christmas and Easter tables, and at almost every community fund-raising supper. This recipe, compiled from cooks whose families have been making it for generations, uses raw stuffing and is spiced with plenty of black and red pepper. Because the ham boils for so long, the spiciness will mellow. The most challenging part is the finding the ham itself. Corned hams — which are simply fresh hams that have been cured in salt or brine — aren’t usually in the grocery meat case, and butchers will often require advance orders. Corning your own fresh ham is not hard, but it can take several days and turns this into even more of a project.
Ginger Mango Cream Tart
Festive enough for a holiday party or a summer cookout, this bright and creamy mango tart has a crisp gingersnap crust and is topped with candied ginger, pistachios and toasted coconut. The no-bake crust, which is made from store bought gingersnaps, butter and light brown sugar, comes together in the food processor with the press of a button. For the filling, fresh or frozen mango is cooked with ginger and turmeric to deepen its flavor and brighten the color of the finished dessert.
Party Wreath
This party-size vegetarian version of a sausage roll takes a bit of inspiration from potato- and pea-filled samosas: The filling is a coarse mash of peas and potato mixed with fresh ginger and green chiles, along with cumin, fennel and sesame seeds. Seasoned with lemon juice and garam masala, it has a tangy, gently spicy flavor that’s even more sumptuous when it’s wrapped in buttery store-bought puff pastry. Be sure to cut the roll almost all the way to the inner edge before sliding it into the oven, so that the baked pieces are easy to tear away. Serve with green chutney, tamarind chutney, a squirt of Maggi ketchup, or just as is, with a few wedges of lemon or lime on the side.
Fried Apple Pies
These little pies are filled to the brim with juicy caramel apple filling, fried, then tossed in cinnamon sugar. You may need to adjust the temperature as you fry them: If the oil is too hot, they’ll look golden on the outside, but the dough may not fully cook through. If the oil is too cool, they may be greasy. If you don’t have a thermometer, use a piece of scrap dough to test the oil for frying; it should rise to the top immediately.
Buttermilk-Brined Roast Chicken
This recipe, adapted from Samin Nosrat's "Salt Fat Acid Heat," is inspired by the Southern grandma method of marinating chicken overnight in buttermilk before frying it. You're roasting here, but the buttermilk and salt still work like a brine, tenderizing the meat on multiple levels to yield an unbelievably juicy chicken. As an added bonus, the sugars in the buttermilk will caramelize, contributing to an exquisitely browned skin. Be sure to leave 24 hours for marinating the chicken. While the beauty of roast chicken is that you can serve it anytime, anywhere, try serving it alongside panzanella, which plays the role of starch, salad and sauce.
White Bean Hummus With Tahini and Coriander
Coriander seeds add a welcome aroma to this white bean dip, rich with tahini and bright with lemon juice. The miso paste is optional, but it gives the mellow white beans a nice savory depth.