A Thinking Vegan Thanksgiving Menu
Thanksgiving is our least favorite holiday. What with the slaughter of 46 million turkeys (eight million of whom are thrown away), the genocide of this country’s indigenous people this day celebrates, violent sports on television all day, and the kickoff of the season of consumerism with Black Friday, there’s nothing redeeming about Thanksgiving.
So of course we offered to host it this year.
This should not be taken lightly: in 28 years of dating, and 22 years of marriage, this was the first time we’ve ever hosted Gary’s family for Thanksgiving. While I typically make a few dishes so there’s enough for us to eat, and vegan desserts for everyone, this was my first time producing the entire meal. And, the first time the in-laws would experience an all-vegan Thanksgiving. What could go wrong?
Absolutely nothing, it turns out.
Everything was perfect, more or less, and everyone loved the food, more or less.
We leaned towards the traditional options, especially to keep things familiar to nonvegans, so there’s no acorn squash stuffed with lentils here. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) If you want a pretty good rundown for your next holiday meal, here is a curated recipe list with some details on preparation and variations.
Shaved Fennel/Apple Salad
With all the carbs and casseroles on the table, you want something fresh and green out there. I based this loosely on Laura Wright’s fennel and arugula salad on The First Mess but skipped the nuts, used spinach in place of arugula, and upgraded the dressing.
Because the apples were hella tart, it needed a sweet dressing. I mixed roughly equal parts pomegranate molasses, agave syrup, and olive oil, then adjusted to taste. That was it, other than salt, pepper, and several pinches of dried oregano. It turned out exactly like I wanted: sweet, sour, fruity, and sassy.
Since apples and fennel both tend to oxidize (turn brown once cut), you can’t make the salad too far in advance. However, this only takes 20 minutes or so. If you slice everything about an hour before dinner, that gives the fennel and apples time to macerate in the dressing.
Don’t bother making this if you don’t own a mandoline, and don’t use a mandoline if you don’t have a cut-proof glove.
Vegan Brussels au Gratin
Miss Kitchen Witch, Gwen Mathers, is mostly famous for her vegan grilled cheese sandwich that beat the nonvegan chefs at the annual Grilled Cheese Invitational. However, in my house she’s famous for this gooey, cheesy Brussels au Gratin that is now on the table for nearly every holiday.
Look, we all love roasted Brussels, any day of the year, but wrapping them in a nice warm blanket of creamy white sauce makes them holiday-worthy. I doubled the recipe and have even tripled it in the past.
You can roast the Brussels the day before, then make the sauce and finish in the oven early on Thanksgiving day. You could probably make the whole thing the day before. Toss it back in the oven to warm up, along with everything else you need to warm up.
Mashed Sweet Potatoes
No recipe needed. Peel about six pounds of sweet potatoes and cut into chunks of about an inch or two. Put a half-cup of water in the bottom of your Instant Pot, add the chunks, and pressure cook for 6-7 minutes. Drain and mash in the pot with a few lumps of vegan butter, as if there isn’t already enough butter in literally everything else on the table.
Since these are quick and easy, make them the day of. If a guest wanders into the kitchen to ask “Can I help you with anything?” in that whiny way that guests tend to do, put them in charge of peeling or mashing or both.
These can sit in the instapot on the keep warm setting until ready to serve. We had mashed sweet pertaters instead of regular mashed pertaters because Gary requested…
Scalloped Potatoes
This year instead of my usual I used this recipe from Nora Taylor, aka Nora Cooks, because I’ve been making a lot from her blog lately. Her recipes tend to be unfussy, and almost always turn out well even if you fuck up a step along the way. However, I think I’ll pivot back to my other recipe the next time he requests this, because I wasn’t wild about the sauce in Nora’s. The flavor leaned heavily on the nutritional yeast and was thick from the cashews; I tend to like my SPs a little more runny, a little more French. Also, I had to add considerable time in the oven because the potatoes were still too firm.
Here is the recipe I prefer, from Karissa Besaw of Karissa’s Vegan Kitchen. Scroll down to see her note with the original version that uses vegetable broth and cornstarch. Nora’s recipe is the proper quantity for feeding a crowd, however, so scale Karissa’s appropriately.
Whichever you choose, you should make this the day before (slicing all those potatoes is tedious even with your mandoline) (and your cut-proof glove; I cannot stress this enough). Warm it up (covered in foil please) before dinner.
Moving on to the last of the starches…
Vegan Sourdough Bread Stuffing
I haven’t made a lot of stuffing in my lifetime. My grandmother on my dad’s side was the stuffing master. She wasn’t much of a day-to-day cook, after all, she invented the ham and jam sandwich: “you take a piece of ham, and then jam it between two pieces of bread.” But she could throw down a holiday feast that people crossed state lines to eat, and her stuffing was the star of the table.
It’s been more than 30 years since I’ve had that stuffing, but this recipe by Melissa Huggins, aka Vegan Huggs, is about as good as the one I remember eating on holidays at my grandparents’ house. Melissa is extremely underrated, in my opinion, and I can’t recommend Vegan Huggs highly enough. In fact, if you were to ask me who my favorite recipe blogger is, I would think long and hard, and then I’d say Melissa is in my top five, probably top three.
Melissa gives this stuffing added zing with sourdough bread, but regular French bread is wonderful too. I used mostly fresh herbs instead of dried, except that I find a teaspoon or two of poultry seasoning brings it closer to my grandma’s.
I scaled up the recipe by 1.5 and you can easily double it, assuming you have a baking dish big enough. Do read all her notes on getting the moisture level right for your personal preference because it may take longer in the oven than it specifies.
Pro tip for a day that is not Thanksgiving: make this, and add cut-up Field Roast apple-sage sausage or seitan before sticking it in the oven, to make this side dish a meal.
Monday night, cut up the bread and leave it to dry out. It should be perfect and ready by Wednesday morning when you start the rest of it. You’ll get the whole thing ready for the oven, foil and all, then stick it in the fridge and bake on Thanksgiving Day.
Turkey-Style Roast
Just to complicate my life, I made this turkey seitan roast but with rice paper “skin” from this recipe, both from the blog 86 Eats. I made the roast the day before and precooked it. Then on Thanksgiving, I oiled the skin and threw it back in for 15 minutes. I don’t think the skin is essential, but the presentation was impressive. The nonvegans enjoyed it, and there were no leftovers, sadly. Next time I’ll go bigger.
In retrospect gravy would have been a good addition, but I don’t have a gravy recipe I’m especially fond of.
That brings us to dessert…
Chocolate Pretzel Pecan Pie
‘It’ blogger Lauren Boehme Hartmann of Rabbit and Wolves has some nice comfort pasta recipes, but I was drawn to this pie and planned to make it last year. Then, due to some painful oral surgery, we had split pea soup for Thanksgiving dinner. And there was no dessert.
While I liked the pie, it was not the biggest hit of the night, and I probably wouldn’t make it again. Crumb crusts are a pain, and they’re not any less of a pain using pretzel crumbs. If you want to tackle this one, I would give it a shot with a regular premade frozen crust (they’re usually accidentally vegan) and maybe add more pretzels to the filling for flavor and for special effects.
Several guests thought the filling was too hard. I did use maple syrup in place of corn syrup, so perhaps that was on me. I made this pie two days in advance, kept it refrigerated, then let it come to room temperature the day of the feast.
Apple-Cherry Pie
My mother-in-law likes apple pie. She also likes cherry. After the chocolate-pretzel-pecan extravaganza I wasn’t about to make a third pie, so I decided to combine them. It so happens that apples and cherries go great together.
Both fillings get precooked separately and then combined with a thickener. First peel and slice 6-8 apples. I used Granny Smiths because they hold up well, maintaining a good texture when cooked and baked.
Melt two tablespoons of vegan butter (I prefer Violife) in a medium pot over low-medium heat, then add the apples. Stir in about a half a cup brown sugar (unpacked) and a quarter cup of white sugar. I forgot vanilla, but add a teaspoon or so, maybe a pinch of salt. Keep stirring gently and when the sugars have dissolved, and the apples have released some juices and softened, remove it and stash all this in a bowl.
Using the same pot, add a pound of frozen cherries and heat over low for three minutes just to cook off some of the water. While that’s happening mix ¾ cup white sugar with 4 tablespoons cornstarch in a little bowl. When the three minutes are up, toss the powder into the saucepan and stir well. Raise the heat to medium-low. The cherries will defrost and bleed. Stir constantly for about 10 minutes, but be gentle, because you want most of the cherries to stay whole. Then add the apples (remember them?) back to the pot. At this point you should season it appropriately: lots of powdered ginger, about a half teaspoon of cloves, and a tiny bit of nutmeg was perfect. Skip the cinnamon, that’s trying too hard.
Pour into a premade pie crust and bake at 375 for about 45 minutes. You’ll definitely need to use pie crust shields, or foil, to keep the crust’s edge from burning.
I made the apple filling on Tuesday and finished everything else Thursday morning.
With the pies I offered a can of whipped cream made with almond milk, the only vegan option my supermarket had. The almond flavor was very forward and I can’t recommend it. Find something better.
Shout-out to my brother- and sister-in-law for choosing an amazing tequila to go along with the meal!
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