Here in the U.S., our feast of the year is quickly approaching. This Thanksgiving, I’m saving the cross-country trek to see my family in California until Christmas. Instead, I’m going back to my old stomping grounds in Houston to celebrate with friends.
While I think cooking may be minimal for us on Thanksgiving day (luckily I’ve gotten my fill thanks to Friendsgivings and random projects), I was daydreaming about my ideal Thanksgiving menu and will share my greatest hits below for some inspo:
Potato leek gratin (NYT): a friend made this for a Friendsgiving and it was the cheesy, creamy scalloped potato situation of my dreams. The leeks add flavor I didn’t know I needed and the cheese level is elite.
Ruth Chris sweet potato casserole: The winner and my personal favorite from the sweet potato casserole bake off. This is not for the faint of heart, but it is SO TASTY.
Kale and caramelized stuffing from Smitten Kitchen: Another personal favorite from the vegetarian stuffing bake off. I’ve been making The Kitchn’s classic stuffing for the past few years, but I forgot how much I love this stuffing.
Isa Chandra’s green bean casserole: I’ve never had a casserole I love this much. The creamy cashew sauce combined with the fried onions is perfection to me.
Cafe Gratitude miso brussel sprouts: One of my favorite way to eat brussel sprouts.
Julia Moskin’s mac ‘n cheese: The perfect hands-off recipe to make while you’re busy finishing everything else. But Poole’s Diner is also perfection if you’re able to pay it some attention!
Stuffed acorn squash from Joy the Baker: I’ve had these before as a vegetarian main (made with veg sausage) and loved them.
For dessert, Flour Bakery’s pumpkin and apple pies, King Arthur’s pecan pie and my streusel pumpkin bread!
As for the bread…
The yeast dinner roll bake off is fresh off the press!
While I was, as always, worried that all of these recipes would taste similar, I was happily surprised! There was lots of variation in shapes, textures and flavor.
I was disappointed that there was more baker’s error than normal in this bake off (I think I overproofed 2-3 recipes), but some error with yeast recipes is bound to happen. Still, I think we ended up with a good representation of the dinner roll recipes available on the internet.
My personal pick for a Thanksgiving feast would be Cooking Classy (the ease of this recipe just edges out Joshua W. for me), but check out the full blog post for all the details!
Wondering how your favorite stacks up?
This master spreadsheet contains most of my bake off spreadsheets where I collect and compare recipes. If you ever want to compare your favorite recipes against the ones I’ve tested, this will make it easy!
Thanksgiving Bake Offs
In case you’re looking for more recipe inspiration!