Easy Thanksgiving Dinner

There is a slight nip in the air and the winter is about to set in full glory. Guys! Thanksgiving is just around the corner! Have you started gearing up for hosting a Thanksgiving dinner? I am sure it is a slightly tough ask with the festive dinner demanding the things to be as perfect as it can be. But no problem! They say that where there is a will there is a way. There is no stopping you if you have made up your mind to do something. But for successfully accomplishing a task like hosting a Thanksgiving dinner, planning the meal and the overall logistics is extremely important. Moreover, just because it is Thanksgiving and a day for festivities, there is no rule that your Thanksgiving dinner platter has to include exotic and difficult-to-make dishes! You can very well conjure an easy Thanksgiving dinner, which the article is going to be all about! So hang in there!

Easy Thanksgiving Dinner Menu Ideas

Talk of Thanksgiving dinner and there is a plethora of dishes and menu ideas you can pick from. You name it and you have it all, starting from Turkey to Cranberry sauce to pies for dessert in your Thanksgiving dinner menu!

Thanksgiving Dinner Idea #1
Well, Turkey, as mentioned before is going to be the mainstay of the dinner. So one of the easiest and the traditional Thanksgiving dinner menu can consist of -

• Turkey
• Mashed Potatoes
• Stuffing
• Green Bean Casserole
• Cranberry Sauce
• Gravy

Here the only slightly difficult part is the bean casserole, otherwise, all other things are pretty easy. As it needs a bit of measuring a opening a few cans of food and the like.

Thanksgiving Dinner Idea #2
With the Turkey being constant, you can play with the other dishes, like instead of the mashed potatoes, you can have maple cranberry sweet potatoes, Instead of the casserole you can have bean with shallots, squash soup and vegetable herb stuffing instead of the non veg and apple stuffing, for a Vegan Thanksgiving dinner. It is fairly easy!

Thanksgiving Dinner Idea #3
Another menu for an easy thanksgiving dinner can be -

• Shrimp Puffs
• Praline Cranberry Dip
• Stuffing in a Crockpot.
• Carrot pineapple salad
• Pumpkin Pie

Potatoes too can be cooked gradually in the crockpot so that the flavor is retained well by the dish.

A Thanksgiving dinner menu need not be too elaborate, but it should have Turkey and cranberry sauce by default! Starters would not be much of an issue! Now let us help you with a few Thanksgiving recipes, which are a bit different from the usual, amongst Thanksgiving dinner ideas mentioned above.

Thanksgiving Dinner Recipes

Here is presenting you the recipe for shrimp puffs and carrot pineapple salad! Yummy!

Shrimp Puffs
For the green bean Casserole you will need:

• 6 slices firm white sandwich bread
• 1 lb. frozen, uncooked shrimp, deveined and shelled
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tbsp. butter
• 1 tbsp. olive oil
• 1-1/2 cups shredded Gruyere or Havarti cheese
• 1 tsp. lemon zest

The procedure goes:

• Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F, while that happens, taking a small cookie cutter, cut out four circles from each slice of bread.
• Place them on cookie sheet and then bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes or until the bread is crisp and dry.
• Turn bread rounds once halfway through the baking time and then let the bread cool on wire rack.
• The next thing is to heat butter and olive oil in a heavy skillet. Follow that by cooking garlic and shrimp till the shrimp curl and get a pink color.
• Set aside the skillet for 10-15 minutes to cool a little bit.
• Meanwhile, in a large bowl, mix cheese, lemon zest, dill, mayonnaise, and pepper.
• Chop shrimp finely and then add it to this cheese mixture.
• Shrimp mixture will have to be topped with bread rounds now and the shrimp will have to be mounded and smoothened.
• Freeze the mixture in a single layer on the baking sheet, then store in the freezer container in the same way.
• Finally, before you have to serve, bake puffs, frozen, in preheated 400 degrees F oven for 10-13 minutes.

Let them be till they turn golden brown and bubbly and serve it hot! Is this your idea of what can be in an Easy thanksgiving dinner? If it is, then try it out, it will be done within an hour! You can get similar information in easy Thanksgiving dinner for two.

Carrot Pineapple Salad
This is fantastic alternative to the usual salads and easy too! Check it out! What you will need is:

• 1 envelope unflavored gelatin
• 1/2 cup reserved pineapple juice
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 cup boiling water
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans
• 8-oz. can crushed pineapple, well drained, reserving juice
• 2 carrots, coarsely grated

Then the process of making it goes like this -

• Take gelatin and sprinkle it over reserved pineapple juice and let it stand 2-3 minutes in a big bowl.
• Pour sugar and salt on top of gelatin.
• Follow that by pouring boiling water over that and stir till the sugar and gelatin get dissolved.
• Add lemon juice and then again stir to blend.
• Now add pecans, grated carrot and pineapple.
• Pour this mixture into 8" square glass baking dish.
• Cover the dish and chill for 4 hours till it's firm.

Last, but not the least, cut into squares and serve with a bit of mayonnaise on top. This will be good enough for 9 servings! Enjoy this Thanksgiving dinner recipe!

Well, I come to the end of my article here on Easy thanksgiving dinner. At the end, I just want to mention that the best way to have a stress free and easy Thanksgiving dinner is to prepare what can be prepared a day earlier. This reduces the workload on D-day! Oh and if someone wants to help you out, please let him or her do! Meal planning will help you have a smooth Thanksgiving dinner! All the best! Bon Appetit!