What are my Vegan Thanksgiving Meal Plans? Thanksgiving is a time for joy and laughter. It’s a time for families to gather around food, giving thanks to the blessings they’ve received in their lives. The most common dishes surrounding this holiday are: turkey, glazed spiral-cut ham, buttery mashed potatoes, gravy (with turkey drippings), candied yams, and herb-filled dressing. Oh… and don’t forget the pumpkin pie with whipped topping!
To most people, this sounds great; it’s what many Americans have grown to love about the gluttonous holiday. But for vegans, it’s a culinary nightmare! And it often makes for some pretty awkward feelings/conversations around the dinner table. If it’s your first vegan thanksgiving, don’t worry; we can get through this “Turkey Day” together.
My “Turkey Day” Picks
As you can imagine, I receive lots of questions throughout the week regarding vegan thanksgiving plant-based foods and general nutrition. But over the past two weeks I’ve received more questions than ever, and they were mostly concerning Thanksgiving meal ideas. I understand your confusion, especially if you have a family who’s depending on you to cook. So, let’s look at some options together!
Anna, a vegan friend of mine (and triathlete) recently posted an article with 40+ Vegan Thanksgiving Meal Ideas. It’s an extensive list that offers soups/salads, main dishes, gravies, cranberry sauces, bread, and (of course) dessert. I thought I’d pick a couple of things to make, which I will be taking to my family Thanksgiving dinner this year. Check them out and let me know what you think!
Looks good! We're having a pre-Thanksgiving dinner at home this Thursday where I'm making meatless loaf, cranberry sauce, biscuits, stuffing, mashed potatoes and mushroom gravy, creamed corn, and green beans. Next week we travel to see family and I'm just charged with making an appetizer (debating between Rosemary Fauxnuts or Mushroom Walnut Pate) and bringing wine. My family also is respectful enough to have some vegan dishes at their more traditional meal.
I actually just did a test run last night making my cornbread dressing vegan. I use my mother's recipe which is the best 🙂 but contains cream of chicken soup and chicken broth. It turned out awesome and I had orange cranberry sauce with it. I was one happy girl! I put a pack of mori nu extra firm tofu in Vitamix with two not chicken broth cubes, about tbsp or so of vegannaise and a little bit of Imagine no chicken broth to help it blend. I added all that to the cornbread mixture and added the broth until I got the consistency I wanted. I really was shocked that it tasted like the normal recipe. Now I just need to figure out egg free latkes because Hanukkah is on Thanksgiving this year. I guess I can always just fix regular hash browns if I have to. Have a great Thanksgiving Brandon 🙂
Possibly the best part of preparing for a holiday meal is enjoying the test-run sampling! I need to do a few myself, this will be an interesting Thanksgiving, as it's the first one I've really had to cook. I hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving as well, Batyah! 🙂
I should really come by Thursday and make sure everything is up to par 😉
I'm sure it'll be great. How can you go wrong with meatless meatloaf, cranberry sauce, and veggies!? Let me know how everything turns out (and snap pics).
P.S. I vote for Mushroom Walnut Pate!
Thanks so much for linking to my post Brandon! I like your choices, they all look scrumptious.
You're very welcome. Thanks for helping me decide what to fix! I can't wait to get started preparing these dishes. It may be a disaster in the kitchen for the next few weeks 😉