Do you need healthy Thanksgiving recipes that still taste like Thanksgiving? That is the whole job here: lighter versions of the holiday plate, roasted vegetables and squash, quinoa and cauliflower standing in for bread stuffing, a turkey that comes out juicy without half a pound of butter, and desserts sweetened with maple instead of a bag of sugar. I never hid vegetables from my kids the way the cookbooks tell you to. I just made the rule that dessert came after the vegetables, and it worked, and they eat their vegetables to this day. Same idea on a Thanksgiving table: make the green things good enough that nobody has to be talked into them. Perfect for a lighter holiday menu, a gluten free or vegan guest, leftover turkey week, and anyone who wants to finish dinner feeling good!
1. Oven Roasted Turkey Breast
A bone-in turkey breast, about six pounds, rubbed with garlic salt, paprika, onion powder and olive oil, then roasted inside an oven bag with a spoonful of flour shaken through it. The bag is the trick. It traps steam so the white meat stays juicy for the full two hours, which is exactly where most turkey goes wrong. Onion and celery ride in the cavity. Serves ten.
Get the full tutorial at A Pinch of Healthy.
2. Balsamic Garlic Roasted Green Beans and Mushrooms
This is the green bean dish for people who are done with the canned soup version. A pound of green beans, eight ounces of halved mushrooms and eight to ten whole garlic cloves go onto one sheet pan with olive oil and a tablespoon of balsamic, then roast at 450 for 20 to 25 minutes until the beans are tender crisp and the garlic has gone sweet. Thirty minutes, six servings.
Get the full tutorial at Let's Dish Recipes.
3. Creamy Coconut Ginger-Carrot Soup
Carrots, ginger and coconut milk blended smooth, which is one of the few soups that looks like a holiday first course and costs almost nothing to make. The ginger is what keeps it from reading as baby food, and the coconut milk does the work heavy cream usually does. Make it the day before, because it reheats better than it cooks.
Get the full tutorial at Fit Bottomed Girls.
4. Pumpkin Risotto With Goat Cheese and Dried Cranberries
Here is your vegetarian main, and it is genuinely worth making. Four cups of broth get whisked with a cup of pumpkin puree and kept warm, then ladled into arborio rice a little at a time until it is creamy. Goat cheese and dried cranberries go in at the end. Thirty-five minutes, four servings, and it is the one dish on this list that asks you to stand at the stove and stir.
Get the full tutorial at Plating and Pairings.
5. Roasted Hasselback Sweet Potatoes
Two pounds of sweet potatoes sliced thin and stood up on their edges in a baking dish, with shallot slices tucked between every few, brushed with butter, olive oil and rosemary. The rosemary is the whole point: it moves sweet potatoes off the dessert end of the table and into a real side dish. Covered, an hour at 425. The maker says a mandoline gets the slicing done in five minutes, and to use the finger guard.
Get the full tutorial at Bijoux and Bits.
6. Roasted Acorn Squash With Cranberry Walnut Quinoa Stuffing
Acorn squash halves roasted cut side down at 450 for 25 to 35 minutes, then filled with quinoa cooked in vegetable broth with mushrooms, walnuts, dried cranberries, sage and thyme. It is vegan and gluten free without announcing it, which is the polite way to feed a mixed table. Fifty minutes, six servings, and every half looks like somebody plated it on purpose.
Get the full tutorial at Tasteful Venture.
7. Lemon Parmesan Garlic Roasted Potatoes
Three pounds of red potatoes halved and roasted cut side down at 375, 15 minutes, a stir, then 10 to 15 more. Cut side down is what gives you the golden crust, and skipping that is why home roasted potatoes go pale. Lemon juice and zest, garlic, rosemary and parmesan go on before they bake, fresh parsley after. Serves twelve, which covers a crowd.
Get the full tutorial at My Natural Family.
8. Cauliflower Rice Stuffing
Two heads of cauliflower pulsed to rice in a food processor, then cooked down with onion, celery, mushrooms, pecans, sage and poultry seasoning until it tastes like stuffing and nobody at the table can quite explain why. Thirty minutes, eight servings, and it keeps five days in the fridge. This is the one I would put next to a traditional bread stuffing so people can take a spoon of each.
Get the full tutorial at The Healthy Maven.
9. No Bake Pumpkin Balls
Ground oats, coconut flour, pumpkin puree, almond butter and maple syrup rolled into balls and finished in cinnamon sugar. Ten minutes, no oven, fourteen of them, and the oven is the thing you will not have to spare on Thanksgiving. Make them a few days early and hide them, because they are also breakfast.
Get the full tutorial at Turning the Clock Back.
10. Stuffed Butternut Squash With Quinoa, Cranberries and Kale
Butternut squash halves roasted at 425 for 45 to 55 minutes, then loaded with quinoa, kale, chickpeas, dried cranberries and orange zest. The orange is what lifts it. Without it you have a worthy bowl of squash, and with it you have something people go back for. Seventy minutes, four servings, and it makes a real main course for a vegetarian guest rather than a plate of sides.
Get the full tutorial at Well Plated.
11. Cinnamon Apple Chips
McIntosh apples sliced an eighth to a quarter inch thick, dusted with cinnamon and a teaspoon of sugar, then dried in a 200 degree oven for two to three hours. Low and slow is the whole recipe. Pull them while they are dry but still a little soft, let them cool completely, and store them airtight for up to four days. Perfect for the grazing hours before dinner.
Get the full tutorial at Carrie's Experimental Kitchen.
12. Clean Eating Pecan Pie
Pecan pie without the corn syrup, built on an almond flour crust and sweetened with pure maple syrup and coconut sugar, baked at 400. Take the maker’s warning seriously: use a regular pie dish, not a deep one, because the deep sides stretch an almond flour crust too thin and the rim gives out. This is the dessert that lets the clean eaters at your table have a real slice.
Get the full tutorial at Feel Great in 8.
13. Classic Chickpea Vegan Meatloaf
Two cans of chickpeas pulsed with onion, celery, carrot, panko and ground flax, pressed into a loaf pan and baked at 375, then glazed with tomato paste, maple syrup and cider vinegar for the last stretch. The instruction that matters is do not overblend. Pulse until the chickpeas break up and stop, or you get paste instead of texture. Sixty-five minutes, eight slices.
Get the full tutorial at Connoisseurus Veg.
14. Easy Artisan Bread
Water, yeast, salt and flour, mixed in one bowl with no kneading to speak of, and here is the part worth knowing: the dough keeps in the fridge for up to a week and a half. Cut off what you need, shape it, and bake it in a Dutch oven that has been preheating in a 450 degree oven. That is where the crust comes from. Makes two loaves.
Get the full tutorial at An Oregon Cottage.
15. Pumpkin Hummus
Pumpkin puree, chickpeas, tahini, lemon, garlic, cumin, chili powder, cinnamon and a pinch of cayenne, all into the food processor together. Ten minutes, eight servings, no cooking. The cinnamon and cayenne are what make it a fall dip instead of regular hummus with something orange in it. Set it out with raw vegetables while the turkey rests.
Get the full tutorial at Kim's Cravings.
16. Farro, Mushroom, Cranberry and Walnut Stuffed Acorn Squash
Farro instead of quinoa this time, cooked in vegetable broth with portobello mushrooms, walnuts, cranberries, thyme and sage, spooned into acorn squash roasted cut side down for 25 to 30 minutes. One genuinely useful tip from the maker: if the squash is too hard to cut, pierce it and microwave it a minute or two first. Fifty-five minutes, four servings.
Get the full tutorial at Running in a Skirt.
17. Baked Apples With Sausage Stuffing
Apples hollowed out and filled with sausage, onion, celery and stuffing moistened with chicken broth instead of water, which is a small swap that does a lot. Savory baked apples surprise people, and they solve the plating problem at a big meal because every guest gets their own. Six apples, and Granny Smith holds its shape best of the three the recipe suggests.
Get the full tutorial at Growing Up Gabel.
18. Roasted Coriander Carrots With Caramelized Onions
Three pounds of carrots cut into sticks, tossed with olive oil, ground coriander and maple syrup, roasted at 400 for about 30 minutes with a turn at the halfway mark. Onions caramelize separately in a pan with a splash of cider vinegar and go over the top at the end. Ground coriander on carrots is the kind of small idea you steal permanently. Serves four to six.
Get the full tutorial at Maria Ushakova.
19. Quinoa Stuffing
Heads up before you click: this is not a bread stuffing, and Kristin doesn’t call it one. It’s a quinoa salad that does stuffing’s whole job on a Thanksgiving plate, apple, dried cranberries, almonds and maple sausage, with none of the bread. She built it as a riff on a Whole Foods hot bar side, and rebuilding a dish I ate somewhere else, without a recipe, is my favorite kind of cooking. I usually land it. Papa Joe’s flounder pontchartrain beat me in college. Half a cup of pre-rinsed quinoa simmers in a cup of chicken broth for 12 to 15 minutes, lid on, then cools before the rest goes in. 30 minutes, serves four, good warm or cold the next day.
Get the full tutorial at Iowa Girl Eats.
20. Broccoli Casserole
A broccoli casserole built from scratch instead of a can: real cream sauce with mushrooms and onion, Greek yogurt for tang, cheddar and whole wheat breadcrumbs on top. Broccoli goes into boiling water for exactly four minutes and then straight into cold, which is why it stays green rather than going olive drab. Bakes at 350, serves ten, and it can be assembled the day before.
Get the full tutorial at Kristine's Kitchen.
21. Turkey Orzo Soup
This is what Friday is for. Carrots, celery and red onion softened in a pot, then six cups of broth, a cup of diced leftover turkey and half a cup of orzo, simmered 15 to 20 minutes. Thirty-five minutes total, seven servings, and it uses the turkey nobody wants to look at anymore in a form nobody argues with.
Get the full tutorial at Carrie's Experimental Kitchen.
22. Herb Roasted Turkey
A twelve pound turkey at 325, with six tablespoons of butter cut into pats and slid under the skin rather than smeared on top, plus thyme, sage, rosemary, paprika and ground mustard. Butter under the skin is the single biggest difference between a dry breast and a good one. Serves twelve, and the step-by-step is detailed enough for a first-timer.
Get the full tutorial at Yellow Bliss Road.
23. Mini Vegan Pumpkin Pie Cheesecakes
Pecans and medjool dates blitzed into a crust, pressed into a muffin tin, then filled with cashews soaked for an hour, blended with coconut milk, pumpkin, maple and pumpkin pie spice. No baking at all. Twelve of them, and the maker’s tip about running your fingers under warm water before pressing the sticky crust down is the sort of thing you only learn by doing it.
Get the full tutorial at The Glowing Fridge.
24. Corn Casserole
Honesty first: this is not the skinny version. It’s the corn casserole that turns up at Thanksgiving whether anyone is counting or not. Sara stirs a box of Jiffy cornbread mix together with a can of corn, a can of creamed corn, sour cream and melted butter. Then in go the cheddar, bacon, green onion and red pepper, and it bakes at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. What I want out of a recipe these days is healthy and make-ahead, and this one only gives me the second half. Assemble it a day early, keep it covered in the fridge, and add a few extra minutes to the bake because it starts cold. Her one lighter lever is low fat sour cream, which she says still comes out delicious.
Get the full tutorial at Dinner at the Zoo.
25. Gluten Free Walnut And Kale Quinoa Stuffing
Two and a half cups of quinoa simmered in five cups of broth for 18 to 22 minutes, then kale stirred in off the heat so it wilts in the residual steam rather than overcooking. Sage, thyme, a quarter teaspoon of cinnamon, toasted walnuts and dried cranberries go in, and it bakes at 350. Makes eleven cups, which is a real crowd.
Get the full tutorial at Healthy Seasonal Recipes.
26. Shredded Brussels Sprouts With Bacon And Walnuts
A pound of brussels sprouts run through the shredding blade of a food processor, then cooked in bacon drippings for three to five minutes only, with a dressing of cider vinegar, brown sugar and walnut oil poured over off the heat. Three to five minutes is the whole difference between bright and bitter. Toasted walnuts and the bacon go back in at the end. Thirty minutes, four servings.
Get the full tutorial at Pinch My Salt.
27. One-Pan Roasted Vegetables
Bell pepper, carrot, potato, zucchini, red onion, cauliflower and sweet potato, all cut, all tossed in balsamic, herbes de Provence, smoked paprika, garlic powder and olive oil, all onto one sheet. Oven goes to 400, then down to 350 to roast for 30 minutes, and you do not flip them halfway, which means the oven works while you do something else. Fresh basil at the end.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
28. Crispy Oven Roasted Baby Potatoes
Baby potatoes halved, tossed with olive oil, Italian seasoning, garlic powder, kosher salt and pepper, then roasted at 425 for 15 minutes, flipped, and given another 10 to 15 until golden. Baking rather than frying means far less oil for the same crunch. A pound feeds a side of the table, and they go fast enough that I would double it.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
29. Slow Cooker Turkey Soup
Yukon gold potatoes, celery, carrots, onion, garlic and six cups of chicken broth into a six quart slow cooker, high for three to four hours or low for six to eight, then three cups of shredded turkey, cream and parsley for the last half hour. The clever step is blending two cups of it and stirring it back in, which thickens the soup without flour.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
30. Crockpot Healthy Hamburger Soup
Lean ground beef browned with onion, pepper and garlic, then into the slow cooker with sweet potato, Yukon golds, carrots, celery, fire roasted tomatoes and beef broth, five to six hours on high. Green beans and kale go in for the last hour so they keep their color instead of dissolving. A dump-and-go pot that feeds a crowd on the days around the holiday when nobody wants to cook.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
31. Crockpot Minestrone Soup
Fire roasted tomatoes, two kinds of kidney beans, carrots, celery, zucchini, onion and garlic into the crockpot on low for five hours, then ditalini and spinach for the last 25 minutes. Adding the pasta at the end is what keeps it from turning to mush by hour four. A parmesan rind in the pot is optional and I would not skip it.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
32. Crockpot Cabbage Soup
Cabbage, carrots, celery, green pepper, green beans and tomatoes in a crockpot with vegetable broth and tomato juice, two to four hours, and that is the entire job. It is vegetarian as written, about 60 calories a serving, and it takes protein happily if you want to add sausage or chicken. This is the pot I would have going the week before Thanksgiving so there is something light in the fridge.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
33. Crockpot Butternut Squash Soup
Butternut squash, onion, carrot and garlic roasted dry in the crockpot on high for four hours, then blended smooth with chicken broth, maple syrup, cider vinegar and a sage brown butter. It is a Panera copycat, so it is the soup people already like, at a fraction of what a bowl costs out. Vegan if you skip the sour cream on top.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
