The delicious side dishes that accompany turkey on Thanksgiving

The best Thanksgiving side dishes

The American holiday of Thanksgiving is a celebration of gratitude and togetherness. It’s a secular, national holiday that commemorates a harvest feast in the year 1621. It’s not known precisely what they ate at that feast, but it’s possible turkey was part of the meal. Turkey became a popular choice in the annual feasts that followed because wild turkey was plentiful and native to the northeastern part of the United States. By the 1800s, turkey was firmly established as the centerpiece of this annual holiday.

Turkey is the star of the show, but for many people, it’s the side dishes that are the best part of the Thanksgiving meal. So today, you’ll learn about what else goes on Americans’ plates during this holiday.

Let’s start with my favorite: stuffing. Stuffing is made with breadcrumbs, herbs, celery, onion, and sometimes other vegetables like corn or carrots. Mix the ingredients together with broth and bake in the oven. The traditional preparation is to fill the turkey’s cavity with this bread-based stuffing and cook it with the bird. But now, it’s more popular to cook the stuffing separately in a baking pan. When done right, stuffing comes out moist, but not soggy and it has a mild flavor.

Next, let’s take a look at the vegetables. Everyone’s Thanksgiving table is a little different, but you’re likely to find green beans, sweet potatoes, and roasted vegetables. The most popular vegetables are the ones that are harvested in the autumn, like squash, carrots, or Brussels sprouts. Green bean casserole was never one of my favorites, but it is common. It’s made of green beans, mushroom soup, and crispy fried onions.

Mashed potatoes are another staple of Thanksgiving meals. To make mashed potatoes, you peel and boil white potatoes. Then, mix in whole milk and an absurd amount of butter. Smash the potatoes, milk, and butter until they’re nice and soft. The key here is to add more butter than you think you need—and then try to forget about the calories before you take your first bite.

Need more carbs? Some people like to serve macaroni and cheese. It’s common to have either dinner rolls or cornbread, too.

Cranberry sauce provides a tart, sweet taste, almost like a dessert as part of the main course. Cranberry sauce was—wait, no. Correction. Cranberry sauce remains one of my favorite Thanksgiving sides. A cranberry is a small, round, deep-red fruit with a sweet and slightly bitter flavor.

You can buy cranberry sauce in a can, either smooth or chunky. But it’s easy to make at home too. Grocery stores sell fresh cranberries in the fall. To make fresh cranberry sauce, you just boil fresh cranberries and add a ton of sugar—then refrigerate. You should serve cranberry sauce cold or at room temperature.

Now I should talk about gravy. Gravy is not exactly a side dish; it’s a sauce that goes on top of your turkey. Roast turkey tends to be dry, so it’s good to have gravy on top. Gravy is a thick sauce that’s made from the pan drippings of the turkey.

So, you roast the turkey in the oven. Fat and liquid drips into the pan. This becomes the base of the sauce. You can add cornstarch to make it a little thicker, some broth, and spices, and this is homemade gravy. This is the sauce you put on top of the turkey.

If you haven’t guessed, Thanksgiving is not a time to count calories. And no Thanksgiving meal is complete without dessert. The most traditional dessert is pie of some kind. Now, as an adult, my favorite is pumpkin pie. When I was a kid, I liked cherry and apple pie. I’ve never been a huge fan of pecan pie, but that’s another popular dessert.

One more thing to know: when does all this eating happen? Thanksgiving is a national holiday and it falls on a Thursday every year. So most people have the day off, and many have the following day off as well. Not everybody, but many people. It’s common for guests to arrive in the late morning or early afternoon and for everyone to eat in the late afternoon. Three, four, five o’clock is common to eat the meal—and then dessert later in the evening.

The great thing about turkey and all these sides is that they’re easy to preserve and eat as leftovers for days afterward.

Jeff’s take

All Thanksgiving hosts have their own likes and tastes, so not every meal is exactly the same. But these are the basics. And if I’m going to be at the table, mashed potatoes and stuffing are required.

A few other things. NFL football is popular on Thanksgiving; there are usually two games in the afternoon and one in the evening. It’s a popular day for movie releases, so you’ll see holiday-themed movies come out on Thanksgiving Day.

And then of course the next day is Black Friday and the start of the Christmas and holiday shopping season.