How to mostly stress free host Thanksgiving (if you are doing most of the cooking)
Ok, this is for my ladies who love to do it all – you want to host Thanksgiving but also want to cook everything and have found all your favorite recipes and don’t want any deviations because you know they rock. Or if you are like me, have come from decades of family Thanksgiving dinners that were chaotic at best, with everything but the mac and cheese and turkey coming from a box. And there is nothing wrong with that. Stauffers stove top just happens to be one of my biggest comfort foods, and probably for that reason.
However something changed one year when I was broke and couldn’t afford to go home for Thanksgiving, so me, my son, and two best girlfriends decided to have one together. I was watching Alton Brown and he was making Green Bean Casserole from scratch, and holy Toledo, I didn’t know that was a possibility. But regardless of what you decide to do, here is my way to ensure your hosted thanksgiving is mostly stress free.
The main takeaway from this post if you don’t want to read the whole way through is to Plan. What are you serving, guest count, recipes, timing. If you have this, then you are basically ready to go. I would suggest having a paper planner, but that’s just me.
First things first, get a menu set up. You don’t need the recipes just yet, but just figure out which food items you want to eat. And you don’t need a lot of dishes either. Sometimes though, you just do. Each year we have the basics and if we want to spend time on more and we have the resources and time we do. Each year our menu consists of:
- Turkey and Gravy
- Ham – my hubby insists
- Mashed Potatoes
- Sweet potatoes (I know, who needs two potatoes? We do. also sweet potato technically isn’t a starch)
- Mac and Cheese
- Stuffing
- Cranberry sauce
- Rolls
- Dessert – Pumpkin and Pecan Pies, Butterscotch Bundt Cake
Get your plan written out. I have a paper planner for my thanksgiving dinner complete with timeline up to 4 weeks out. I don’t think that far out is necessary, but some people like that. I also have the day of timeline/countdown, week of activities, grocery lists, activities, and recipes. I’ve used this two years in a row, I have my recipes printed out and in my three ring binder as well. I’ve used the same food and size turkey so timelines are the same, and once you get that down one year and it works for you, why change it right? All you need to do is hone it for different size turkey or food that needs cooked that day.
Next, get your recipes all picked out. I love the from scratch aspect, and while there really is nothing wrong with stuffing and green bean casserole from canned or boxed foods, the flavor you get when you make something yourself is unmatched. My stuffing for example, I got the recipe from this link, then added bacon, sausage, and heavy cream, sauteed the sage in the butter with the mirepoix and made it my own. Sure it takes a while longer, but holy Toledo- people go back for thirds of this side. Of course there is the law of diminished returns so you have to find where your line is drawn, and if you don’t want to cut and dry out your own bread cubes, buy the bagged ones from the store and skip that step – easy peasy. Remember, this is your Thanksgiving, you can do as little or as much as you want. If you are interested – here is my list of recipes I use for Thanksgiving.
Up next on my list is guest count – how many people do you want to invite and how many can you actually host? Are you all about squeezing in as many as you can or do you want a select few? For us, we usually have a small dinner with my in-laws, kids, and neighbors so usually 10. But this year, we will be hosting about 12 -14 people, this isn’t much more than normal, and we have so many leftovers from years prior, I don’t need to up the amount of food. This actually should come first, so you can figure out the size of turkey and how much food and space you need.
Cook ahead as much as you can. This is where the planner comes in handy, most of my sides can be cooked ahead, and my desserts are definitely done 1-2 days in advance. The first thing I am concerned about is the pies, since they need to be fully cooked and cooled before eating, and the crust takes a couple of hours to make. So my timeline looks something like this. (everything but the turkey)
Tuesday AM:
- Dry Brine Turkey – AM
- Start turkey stock – AM
- Make Pie crusts – 3
- Make Pie filling if needed
- Cut bread into cubes and leave to dry
- Cut all veggies and portion out if not already done and put in fridge
- Par bake and bake all pies
- Strain and portion turkey stock
Wednesday
- Toast bread crumbs
- Prep stuffing, cover and put in fridge
- Make cranberry sauce
This leads perfectly into The Big Day. First of all, if you have planned perfectly, you do not need to wake up at the crack of dawn to pull this day off. Second, get a cup of coffee, read the Bible, take a walk around the block and take your turkey out of the refrigerator. You want it to come up to almost room temp before cooking. Trust. This makes sure you aren’t over cooking it. Next, if you haven’t already, make a timeline for this day, and everything revolves around when you want to have dinner. Backwards plan starting with the turkey – as this will take the most time. We spatchcock our turkey so we cook it for about 2 hours. We plan to have it sit before serving for 30 – 45 minutes. This frees up oven space for other foods. Most everything else can be served within 10-20 minutes of coming out of the oven to avoid burning mouths, this way you can stagger what goes in and out of the oven if necessary.
Most cooking times start around 12 – 2PM for a 5pm dinner time, depending on how you are cooking your turkey and how big it is.
Finally- enjoy your dinner. This is the most important part, don’t stress over the small things, you can clean up after and if you have good guests, they will help with this as well. You created a beautiful meal for your guests and it’s time to enjoy them and your food.
Some tips: If you don’t want to do everything from scratch the first year, start small, make the turkey and one other item from scratch. If you want to give yourself a leg up, practice the sides for dinners leading up to it. Not too many dinners though, you don’t want to be sick of them by the time Thanksgiving rolls around!
Another tip: delegate smaller task if you have guests – unloading dishwashers, washing random pots and pans, keeping refreshments filled, appetizers, etc.
Keep your dishwasher empty so plates can go straight in, minimizing clean up detail.
I hope this guide serves you well, I have been honing this for about seven years! Coming up next, what we do the next day (hint: I stole this idea from Giada DeLaurentis )
To see our table we updated click here!