Home > Holidays > Thanksgiving > Thanksgiving Menu Thanksgiving Menu September 15, 2020 | No Comments SAVE TO RECIPE BOX This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure policy. Thanksgiving is the mother lode of good eating. You’ll find a little bit of everything for your feast, and if you need a few suggestions, check out our Thanksgiving Menu featured below. Download our free holiday hosting guide here! Thanksgiving menu strategy makes all the difference. Have you checked out our Thanksgiving Planning Guide? It offers a plan and a strategy to help make this mega-meal less stressful and more enjoyable. We firmly believe that you can host a large event like this and still come out smiling…and we’re here to help make that happen! Thanksgiving is all about being grateful, but at the same time, that big feast is definitely on everyone’s minds! Our Thanksgiving Menu is a collection of our favorite holiday-appropriate recipes, and we hope you’ll give some of these a try. Recipes marked GF are, or can be modified to be, gluten free. As with all gluten concerns, it pays to be an educated consumer so that you recognize the essential elements. Celiac.org has a great guide! PS: As we said in the Thanksgiving Planning Guide, it’s a smart move to test any new recipe before sharing it with your guests–and that applies to recipes you gather here, as well. You’ll want to know how the food turns out, and make any fine-tuning adjustments before the big dinner. Here are our favorite Thanksgiving menu recipes! A virtual recipe bonanza at your fingertips! Appetizers start the party right. Especially if you have guests arriving intermittently, appetizers are a great way to help people wait for the main event. Depending on personal preferences, you may want to provide a variety that includes something hot, something cold, something hearty, and something light. Guests love bringing appetizers and snacks, so if they ask what they can bring, here’s your opening! Appetizers are a popular potluck item because there’s no worry about them conflicting with the main course Thanksgiving menu. And if you’re prioritizing your cooking, appetizers are an easy category to assign to your grocery store. There are many wonderful options in the freezer case and in the deli that’ll save you time and fuss. There’s no shame in letting your grocery store help you put on this big meal! Appetizer recipes: Pigs in a Blanket Greek Pasta Salad Pistachio-Crusted Goat Cheese Ball GF Bacon Ranch Pecan Cheeseball 7-Layer Bean Dip Greek Meatballs Corn Salsa GF Taco Lettuce Wraps GF Sweet Chex Mix Chicken Gyros GF (without the pita) Salads start off a large meal. Some families include salads in the main course and others have a separate soup and/or salad course. If you’re serving salads along with the rest of the meal, a separate salad plate helps prevent plate overflow. Salads are chameleons: they can take the shape of a hearty almost-meal (especially if you include pasta, veggies, or meat), a light nearly-dessert, or a terrific side dish. Salad recipes: Pomegranate and Wild Rice Salad GF Fall Bacon Spinach Salad Four-Ingredient Raspberry Cheesecake Fluff Watergate Salad Orange Fluff Salad Ambrosia Salad Thanksgiving Salad GF Frog Eye Salad Apple Salad Broccoli-Grape Pasta Salad Roasted Veggie Salad Southwest Quinoa Salad Soups are another semi-first course, semi-entree dish. Soups can help whet the appetite or they can provide substantial nutrition to the Thanksgiving menu. Just like salads, soup can take on the shape of an entree or a side dish, depending on what ingredients go into the blend. Soup recipes: Crockpot Creamy Chicken, Wild Rice, and Sweet Potato Soup Tomato Basil Soup GF Butternut Squash Soup GF Creamy Vegetable Soup GF Healthy Minestrone Soup Stuffed Pepper Soup The main course is the starring event of a Thanksgiving menu. It’s a smart idea to offer (at least) two entrees for the main course; that way, if someone isn’t fond of turkey, there’s always ham or spaghetti. And because this is the part of the meal that contains most of the nutrition, you might want to think about whether any of your guests are vegetarian, gluten free, or have other sensitivities. We’ve marked the recipes that can be made gluten free with GF. Main courses are usually served with side dishes: veggies, breads, and sometimes soups and salads. How you set up the menu is your call, of course. And if you ask most people, you can never have too many choices! Main Course recipes: Crockpot Turkey Breast GF Shepherd’s Pie Vegetarian Shepherd’s Pie Thanksgiving Dinner on 2 Sheet Pans Goulash Egg Roll in a Bowl GF Veggie recipes: Roasted Vegetables GF Roasted Sweet Potatoes GF Roasted Broccoli GF Roasted Brussel Sprouts GF Roasted Asparagus GF Baked Sweet Potatoes GF Baked Potatoes GF Side dish recipes: Mashed Potatoes GF Sweet Potato Casserole Crockpot Sweet Potato Casserole Crockpot Potatoes Au Gratin Green Bean Casserole The Best Simple Thanksgiving Dressing Cornbread Dressing Sweet Potato Curry Creamed Corn Bread recipes: Cornbread Recipe Cornbread Muffins Dinner Rolls Honey butter GF Pumpkin Scones Lemon Blueberry Bread Pumpkin Muffins Thanksgiving Muffins –so much fun for the kids! Who saved room for dessert? These sweet treats are what the kids are waiting for, and truth be told, most of us are kids at heart when it comes to desserts. Feel free to include as many as you like; guests love bringing desserts, as well. If you know you’ll have special dietary needs, you may want to make a gluten-free dessert, or something that’s sugar free. (Note: fresh fruit is the perfect choice in those cases!) You can also suggest to your gluten-free guests that they bring a GF dessert to share. Many Thanksgiving feasts include coffee along with dessert; again, this is your call. Dessert recipes: Pumpkin Creme Brulee GF Pecan Pie Pecan Streusel Pumpkin Pie Coconut Cream Pie Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars No-Bake Peppermint Cheesecake Brownie Bites Gluten-Free Pumpkin Cake GF Oreo Fluff Chocolate Dip for Fruit GF Healthy Fruit Tart Nutella Pie Peppermint Brownies Apple Crumble English Toffee GF Fun Thanksgiving Treats (especially for the kids!) Cookie recipes Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies Bakery-Style Soft-Baked Pumpkin Cookies Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies Caramel Snickerdoodles 7-Layer Pumpkin Bars Healthy Chocolate Cookies GF Thanksgiving Cookies–decorated for the holiday. Make good use of your Thanksgiving Dinner leftovers! In fact, most people plan ahead for leftovers, either for themselves or to send home with their guests. Stock up with plenty of storage containers (if sending home with your guests, make sure they’re disposable), and make good use of all that Thanksgiving goodness. Most recipes in your files that use cooked chicken pieces can easily swap out for turkey. Use leftovers in these recipes: Leftover Turkey Recipes a collection of recipes perfect for post-Thanksgiving eating Ham and Cheese Sliders Chicken Pot Pie (add turkey instead of chicken!) Ham Pot Pie Chicken Tortellini (using turkey instead of chicken) Ham and Cheese Quiche Thanksgiving Menu Cheat Sheet Use this helpful chart for how much food to make per person coming:
