Thanksgiving is about as traditional of a holiday as it gets. There’s some sort of appetizer or soup or salad to start, then the turkey is the main event and then a plethora of pies with other sweets come into play for dessert. The standard Thanksgiving side dishes of cornbread, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole and so many more make an appearance with the birds too. Over the past few years, the typical foods that are served on Thanksgiving have been changing. From turducken to piecaken, here’s everything you need to know about some of the new alternatives that might make an appearance on your Thanksgiving table this year.
Appetizer:
Everything about Thanksgiving is sweet, from side dishes to desserts. Why not start off with something sweet as well? If you’re looking for something new to serve before the turkey, try apple pie salsa paired with cinnamon sugar chips. They’re the perfect new way to start the best holiday of the year! Find the recipe here.
The Main Course:
It’s probably not the first time you’ve heard of it: turducken. Tired of a normal oven baked or deep fried turkey? Join the turducken craze that’s been around for the last couple of years! So, what is it? A turducken is a chicken stuffed into a duck stuffed into a turkey, so it’s like you’re getting three meats for the price of one. You can either buy your turducken online or make your own using Paula Deen’s recipe.
Side Dishes:
Side dishes are arguably the best part of Thanksgiving dinner and there are some great new sides that anyone can make and impress their families with this year. Kick up the Thanksgiving fun a notch and try trading out your normal cornbread for pumpkin cornbread. Feel like sticking with the fall theme? Try some roasted acorn squash with a pomegranate glaze. Or, if you’re looking for something a little more savory/sweet balance, try making bacon-wrapped potato wedges with honey sauce because nothing says “Thanksgiving” quite like potatoes. Still looking for that balance between sweet and savory? Try mixing it up by combining sweet potato and Yukon gold potatoes to make a hybrid mashed potato that everyone can enjoy.
Dessert:
There are so many possibilities when it comes to dessert, especially for Thanksgiving. Sometimes you want a slice of chocolate cake and you also want a piece of pumpkin pie, but are too full to eat both. This is how the piecaken was created. Like the turducken, the piecaken is also a hybrid dish, but it’s a lot easier to make. You just bake a pie into a layer of cake. You can do one pie flavor and one cake flavor or make multiple layers, each with a different pie flavor and cake flavor. If baking is not your thing, you can pick up your very own piecaken in stores or order one online.