The Thanksgiving hack that gets the loudest reaction is cooking vegetables in the dishwasher, which sounds like a joke until you remember that on the day itself every burner and the oven are already spoken for. That is the spirit of these 14 tips from WhatsUpMoms: small, slightly ridiculous, genuinely useful tricks that free up heat, space, hands and patience on the busiest cooking day of the year. Boil potatoes and shock them so the skins slip off, hold mashed potatoes in a slow cooker on warm, line a cooler with foil and turn it into a hot box, and give leftover porch pumpkins a coat of spray paint so they can be the centerpiece. They are perfect for a first-time host, a crowded fridge, a one-oven kitchen, a table full of kids, and anyone who has ever served one dish hot and three lukewarm.
The Thanksgiving hacks worth your time are the ones that free up heat, space and hands. Boil potatoes until soft and shock them in ice water so the skin peels itself off, keep prepped food in resealable plastic bags to save fridge space, cook seasoned vegetables in a sealed mason jar in the dishwasher, and massage butter under the turkey skin for moist meat. Hold mashed potatoes in a slow cooker on its warm setting, line a cooler with foil to keep dishes hot, triple line the trash cans, and put easel paper on the kids’ table.
RELATED: How to Organize Your Kitchen For Thanksgiving
This holiday can be very tiring. If you are hosting, I’m sure you’ll do anything to make the preparation easier. Try these Thanksgiving tips and tricks for a hassle-free holiday celebration. They can save you a lot of time and energy. From preparing dishes to setting up your Thanksgiving dinner table, they’ve got you covered.
Here are some decorating tips you might want to check out: 5 Easy Ways To Decorate Thanksgiving Dinner Table
Easy Thanksgiving Tips
1 – Potatoes
If you are tired of peeling potatoes, boil them first until soft, then shock them with ice water. The skin will peel itself off easily.
Peeling raw potatoes is the job nobody volunteers for, and this skips it completely. Boil them with the skins on until they are soft, then drop them straight into ice water. The sudden cold makes the skin let go of the flesh underneath, so it comes away in sheets with almost no effort and almost no waste. Do a whole bag at once while something else is in the oven and the mashed potatoes are already half made.
2 – Fridge space
To save some fridge space, keep prepped foods in resealable plastic bags.
Containers are what eat fridge space, not food. A stack of plastic tubs wastes every inch of air between them, while resealable plastic bags lie flat and stack on top of each other like files. Move your prepped food into bags, press them flat, and you will free up a whole shelf for the things that cannot be squashed, like pies and the turkey itself. Write on the bags while they are still empty and dry.
3 – Plating
Before plating, make sure to strategize the serving bowls, casseroles, and plates first with sticky notes.
This one takes ten minutes days ahead and saves a real scramble. Lay out every serving bowl, casserole dish and plate you intend to use, then drop a sticky note in each one naming the dish it is going to hold. Now you know whether you actually own enough vessels while there is still time to borrow some. On the day, whoever is helping can plate up without asking you a single question, which is worth a lot.
4 – Dishwasher
In an air-tight mason jar, add your vegetables, water, and seasonings. Close tightly with the lid. Place it in your dishwasher and cook them in your first load.
Yes, really. Vegetables, a little water and your seasonings go into an air-tight mason jar, the lid goes on tightly, and the jar rides through your first load of the dishwasher and comes out cooked. The point is not the novelty. The point is that your oven and every burner are already spoken for on Thanksgiving, and the dishwasher is the one heat source in the house nobody is competing for. Check that lid twice and run it early.
5 – Moist turkey
Massage butter under the skin of the turkey to get a moist turkey.
Butter rubbed on top of the skin mostly runs off into the pan. Butter massaged underneath it stays exactly where you put it, right against the breast meat, which is the part that dries out first and gets commented on second. Work your hand in gently to separate the skin from the meat, then massage the butter in and smooth the skin back down. Five minutes before the bird goes in the oven, and it changes how the turkey carves.
6 – Conversion
If you don’t know the conversion of a stick of butter in tablespoons, just google it.
There is no prize for knowing how many tablespoons are in a stick of butter off the top of your head. Google it, out loud, with your hands covered in flour, and get on with your day. Thanksgiving is the one meal a year most of us cook recipes we have not touched in twelve months, so half-remembering a conversion is exactly how a pie crust goes wrong. Keep the phone on the counter and check.
7 – Mashed potatoes
Keep your mashed potatoes toasty with a slow cooker in its warm setting.
Mashed potatoes go cold faster than anything else on the table, and reheating them tends to turn them gluey. A slow cooker on its warm setting holds them at temperature for hours without cooking them any further, so you can make them early and stop thinking about them. It also frees up a burner, which on Thanksgiving is the real currency. Scoop them into the serving bowl right before everybody sits down.
8 – Keep things warm
Line your cooler with aluminum foil on all sides, then place your food inside.
A cooler holds temperature in, and it does not much care which direction that goes. Line the inside with aluminum foil on all sides, put your hot covered dishes in and shut the lid, and it will keep them warm while the turkey rests and the table gets set. It also gets three casserole dishes off your counter at the exact moment you need the counter most. Same trick makes taking a hot dish to somebody else’s house survivable.
9 – Trash cans
To avoid reloading your trash cans, triple line them with trash bags.
Thanksgiving makes more trash than any other meal of the year, most of it packaging before a single thing has been cooked. Put three bags in the can instead of one. When the top bag fills up you pull it, tie it and there is a fresh one already waiting, so nobody is crouched under the sink hunting for the box with sticky hands halfway through dinner. Do the same in the bathroom while you are at it.
10 – Leftover pumpkins
If you have leftover pumpkins, spray paint them, and use them as table decor.
Those pumpkins that have been on the porch since the start of October have one job left in them. A coat of spray paint in a single flat color turns a tired orange pumpkin into table decor that looks bought, for whatever a can of paint costs. Do it outside, let them dry all the way through, then group three of them in different sizes down the middle of the table. Thanksgiving decorating, already paid for in October.
11 – Decor
Hot glue fabric on to cut toilet paper rolls for beautiful napkin holders. Tie it with a jute twine for the finishing touches.
Cut toilet paper rolls into rings, hot glue fabric around the outside of each one and tie a length of jute twine around the middle, and you have napkin holders that cost nothing at all. Pick a fabric that picks up a color already on your table and they read as deliberate rather than thrifty. Make them a week ahead while you are watching something, because this is a pleasant little job early and an infuriating one on the morning.
12 – Name
Stick old wine corks with toothpicks, and you’ve got the perfect place cards for smooth seating.
Seating gets decided one way or the other, so you may as well decide it yourself. Push a toothpick into the top of an old wine cork, slide a small name card onto the toothpick, and stand one at each place. The cork is heavy enough that it will not tip over, it costs nothing, and it quietly keeps two people who should not sit together from sitting together. Start saving corks now and you will have plenty.
13 – Tablecloth for kids
For the kid’s tablecloth, use easel paper to keep them occupied long enough to eat their veggies.
Roll easel paper down the kids’ table instead of a cloth and put crayons out along it. It buys you the stretch between everyone sitting down and the food actually arriving, which is precisely when the youngest guests get loudest. Spills tear away with the paper, so nothing needs laundering afterward. And it keeps them at the table long enough to eat their veggies, which was the real goal the whole time.
14 – Spills
For inevitable spills, lay a tablecloth under the table
Spills at Thanksgiving are not a possibility, they are a scheduled event. A cheap tablecloth laid on the floor under the table catches gravy, cranberry sauce and whatever a four year old does with a full glass, and at the end of the night the whole thing gets gathered up and shaken out over the bin. Carpet under a dining table is the one thing you cannot replace on the day.
Must-Try Thanksgiving Hacks
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you peel potatoes quickly for Thanksgiving?
Do not peel them raw. Boil the potatoes until they are soft, then shock them in ice water. The skin peels itself off after that, with almost no effort and hardly any waste. It is the fastest way to get through a whole bag, and you can do it while something else is in the oven.
Can you really cook vegetables in the dishwasher?
You can. Put your vegetables, a little water and your seasonings into an air-tight mason jar, close it tightly with the lid, and run it in your first load. It works because the dishwasher is a heat source nobody else in the kitchen is fighting over on Thanksgiving, when the oven and every burner are taken.
How do you keep mashed potatoes and side dishes warm?
Two ways, and you can use both. Keep mashed potatoes toasty in a slow cooker set to warm, which also frees up a burner. For everything else, line a cooler with aluminum foil on all sides and put the hot food inside, and it will hold the heat while the turkey rests and the table gets set.
How do you get a moist turkey?
Massage butter under the skin of the turkey rather than over it. Butter on top of the skin mostly runs off into the pan, while butter worked underneath sits right against the breast meat, which is the part that dries out first.
What can you do with leftover pumpkins after Halloween?
Spray paint them and use them as table decor. A tired orange porch pumpkin takes a coat of paint and turns into a Thanksgiving centerpiece for the price of a can. Group a few of them in different sizes down the middle of the table with your napkin holders.
