121 Thanksgiving Side Dishes That’ll Outshine the Turkey

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Squash and Caramelized Onion Tart

For a vegetarian main that can hold its own at the center of the table, this tart makes a very convincing argument.

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Roasted Carrots and Chickpeas With Herby Cashew Cream

Carrots and chickpeas rise to stardom with the help of a bright, herb-spiked cashew cream and added crunch from toasty almonds.

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Cabbage Roll Casserole

All the flavors of Eastern European cabbage rolls, but without the rolling.

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Aloo Tikki With Hari Chutney

Crispy, bronzed potato patties and a fiery green sauce to dip them in.  

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Sweet Potatoes With Charred Lemons and Crunchies

With custardy insides and charred exteriors, these sweet potatoes are everything you always wish roasted sweet potatoes could be. A crunchy mixture of toasted nuts and seeds provides pops of texture and spice, and a cooling lemony yogurt sauce cuts through the richness.

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Extremely Cheesy Potato Gratin

Creamy, cheesy potatoes with crispy edges, tender middles, and just a whisper of heat—need we say more?

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Muhammara

This vibrant Middle Eastern dip made from walnuts and red bell peppers pairs perfectly well with fresh pita bread.

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Roasted Squash Salad With Crispy Chickpeas

Crispy, creamy, chewy, bright, and about a dozen other wonderful (see?) adjectives apply to this easy dinner.

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One-Skillet Mushroom Cornbread Stuffing

This gluten-free stuffing has all the familiar aromatics and flavors baked right into cornbread batter, resulting in a crunchy, craggly, super-savory side dish.

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Mashed Baked Potatoes with Chives

Introducing the easiest mashed potatoes of all time.  

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Roasted Carrots With Ayib and Awaze Vinaigrette

Roasted carrots bathed in a buttery, lemony vinaigrette with awaze, a spicy Ethiopian condiment.

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Sweet Potatoes With Maple Tahini

Crispy roasted sweet potato wedges get tossed in a sweet and nutty tahini dressing in this quick vegetarian weeknight dinner.

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Flaky Cranberry Hand Pies

Tart and sweet individual cranberry pies from Amanda Mack of Crust by Mack in Baltimore.

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One-Pot Kimchi and Squash Mac and Cheese

This is a “necessity is the mother of invention” kind of recipe, born from isolation, scant ingredients, an oversupply of kimchi, and sheer hunger. Yet this unconventional one-pot approach also happens to be one of the simplest ways to prepare mac and cheese.

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Glazed Leeks With Pine Nut Salsa Verde

When cooked until tender, doused in a chile-honey-vinegar sauce, and finished with a nutty, herby salsa verde, humble leeks transform into the in-demand side that no one saw coming.  

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Crispy Black Rice and Chinese Sausage Dressing

A riot of textures and sweet-and-savory flavors, this dish is anything but your typical Thanksgiving wild rice salad.

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Brussels Sprouts With Cranberry Mostarda

Cranberry mostarda isn’t as sweet as cranberry sauce, it’s got some fire from mustard seeds—and you’ll want it on allll the roasted vegetables this winter.

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Brown Butter and Sage Parathas

Flaky, nutty, buttery paratha you can prep ahead.

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Citrus-Ginger Raita With Spice Oil

Ginger and orange juice give this raita a holiday feel. Treat it like cranberry sauce–it goes with everything.

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Smashed Green Beans With Lemony Sumac Dressing

These make-ahead green beans soak up a bright lemon and sumac dressing overnight.

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Tahdig With Cranberries and Herbs

This tahdig is dressed up with cranberries and woody herbs for a Thanksgiving-y, festive feel.

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Winter Squash Bharta

Bharta is a Bangladeshi style of seasoned meat or mashed vegetables usually served at room temperature alongside hot steamed rice.

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Pull-Apart Sour Cream and Chive Rolls

These melt-in-your-mouth dinner rolls from Claire Saffitz are even more tender and pillowy than the classic Parker House rolls.

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Jerk Turkey Shepherd’s Pie

“Like Jamaica itself, this is a mash-up of cultures and flavors and ideas—all together in one delicious savory pie,” says chef Tiffany-Anne Parkes.

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Hibiscus Cranberry Sauce

Hibiscus is used in drinks throughout the African diaspora but most notably in Jamaica. Inspired by sorrel—a festive Caribbean punch—this sauce is sweet, tangy, earthy, and the perfect complement to the peppery profile of Jamaican jerk. Rum, allspice, and fresh ginger add a level of warmth and richness of flavor that is the signature of Caribbean cuisine.

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Tater Tot Egg Bake With Bitter Greens Salad

Tater tot casserole and strikingly reminiscent of, tortilla española.

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Crispy Potatoes With Bay and Scallions

This recipe is based on a traditional dish of the Ohlone tribe indigenous to California’s East Bay.

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Pimiento Mac and Cheese

Spicy cheese and crispy panko crumbs makes this a mac unlike any other.

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Cornbread and Salami Dressing

Buttery cornbread and salty salami, when placed on a fork with a piece of turkey and rich gravy, is the perfect bite.

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Coconut Brussels Sprouts Gratin

Don’t be surprised if this creamy, coconutty vegan gratin outperforms some of the heavier traditional Thanksgiving sides.  

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Savory Palmiers with Roasted Garlic and Rosemary

Starting with store-bought puff pastry for this recipe means these crispy, buttery, savory palmiers only look hard.

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Stovetop Spinach-Artichoke Dip

Serving this creamy, delicious dip in a bread bowl is not mandatory, but we highly recommended going for it.

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Caramelized Shallot Dip with Toasted Everything Bagel Topping

This salty, summertime dip pairs perfectly with chips.

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Spinach and Feta Tarte Soleil

The most impressive appetizer to “casually” pull out of the oven when your friends come over (and it also happens to make a nice Thanksgiving snack for while the turkey rests—just sayin').

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Spicy Kimchi–Sweet Potato Fritters

A great appetizer or an indulgent snack, these crispy little fritters are best eaten right away.  

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Broccolini With Sesame Sauce and Lemon

Steamed broccolini dressed with a salty-sweet sesame sauce is a bright, palate-cleansing side dish.

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Cheesy Cabbage Gratin

Every editor who claimed this cheesy gratin would be “too much!” ended up going back for seconds and thirds. We think you’ll do the same.

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Cornbread Stuffing Fried Rice

Think outside the Thanksgiving leftover sandwich box and make this crispy, crunchy, can’t-stop-eating it dish.  

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Mashed Potatoes With Crispety Cruncheties

Ridiculously, impossibly creamy mashed potatoes with a patatas bravas-inspired topping.  

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Marinated Lentils With Lemony Broccolini and Feta

Roasted lemony broccolini, lentils, and salty feta are doused in a spiced oil that’s even better on day two.

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Coconut Creamed Greens

These greens are impossible to stop eating. A sauce of coconut milk, a hot chile, and spices create a full range of bitter, sweet, and tingling flavors.

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Charred Sweet Potatoes With Hot Honey Butter and Lime

When you mix hot sauce with butter, it turns into a spicy, creamy spread that’s perfect for melting atop burnished sweet potato halves, bringing them to life.

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Brussels Sprouts With Pistachios and Lime

These roasted whole Brussels sprouts get so crispy you’ll worry they’re burnt (they’re not!). Then toss ’em in a date molasses–brown butter glaze.

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Fancy Cranberry Sauce

We have a thing for canned cranberry sauce, so we dreamed up a sauce as sliceable and jiggly and fun, with deep fruit flavor and a pretty topping.

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Squash and Radicchio Salad With Pecans

This squash-centric salad has an irresistible pecan dressing and hardy radicchio that refuses to wilt.

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Classic Herb and Fennel Stuffing

This goes out to all those whose Thanksgiving isn’t Thanksgiving without a craggy-topped, herb-infused, crusty-bread-based stuffing.

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Shingled Sweet Potatoes With Harissa

The classic savory-sweet side gets a makeover with the addition of harissa for an extra hint of spicy-earthiness. We promise you won’t miss the marshmallows.

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Leeks in Vinaigrette with Walnuts and Tarragon

Cutting the leeks into rounds is an update on the classic presentation—and makes them easier to serve to a crowd.

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Shaved Carrots With Charred Dates

Tangy, crunchy carrots meet soft and sweet blackened dates for literally everything you want in one bite.

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Make-Ahead Mashed Potatoes

These creamy, glossy mashed potatoes can be made up to two days before the big night without losing their velvety texture.

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Cranberry Sauce with Orange and Cinnamon

Neither too sour nor too sweet, this classic cranberry-orange sauce benefits from a winning combo of bright citrus and warming cinnamon.

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Glazed Shallots with Chile and Thyme

These sweet and saucy shallots are your best answer to an effortless, plan-way-ahead side.

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Parsnip Confit with Pickled Currants

Parsnips bathed in warm olive oil and bejeweled with currents means you'll never look at root vegetables the same way again.

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Broccoli Caesar

You've never met a better, brighter riff on the classic Caesar than this raw broccoli twist.  

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Wild Rice Dressing

This savory wild rice dish is the ultimate gluten-free stuffing, doubling as a holiday-appropriate grain salad with lots of fresh herbs.

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The All-American Stuffing

For cornbread stuffing, toasting the dried-out cornbread is essential; this will keep it from falling apart during mixing.

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Duchess Baked Potatoes

If you’ve ever asked if mashed potatoes can be cooked ahead, the answer is this recipe. The texture is like that of a twice-baked potato.

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Buttermilk Cornbread

This cornbread recipe gets everything you want out of the simple sidekick: It's easy to cut, not too sweet, and holds together.

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Cornbread Stuffing With Sausage and Collard Greens

Your whole kitchen is about to smell like a buttered corn muffin. You can thank us later.

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Buttery Pull-Apart Dinner Rolls

With any luck, these will be the softest rolls you ever make.

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BA’s Best Green Bean Casserole

Rich browned criminis, a béchamel with nutty Parmesan, and extra crispy shallots (of course).

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Chicory Salad with Honey-Mustard Vinaigrette

This sweet-sharp vinaigrette pairs well with the bitter chicories, but feel free to use another sturdy green if you like.

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Citrus-Pomegranate Relish

If you see other types of citrus at the market, feel free to combine them in this simple five-ingredient (cranberry-free) relish recipe.

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Roasted Sweet Potatoes With Chile Yogurt and Mint

This twice-roasted method allows for the sweet potatoes to get super-creamy on the inside while their skins get a little crispy.

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Ultra-Creamy Mashed Potatoes

This easy, perfect mashed potatoes recipe produces the creamiest and fluffiest version of this comfort food classic around. Plus, it can be made in advance.  

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Harissa-and-Maple-Roasted Carrots

A colorful and spicy (but not fiery!) side breaks up all the heavy, rich dishes on the table.

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Southern Mac and Cheese

Southern-style, ooey, gooey mac and cheese is the ultimate Thanksgiving comfort food.

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Glazed Shallots

These glazed shallots are Thanksgiving's sleeper hit.

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Cornbread Stuffing With Sausage and Corn Nuts

Sweet, spicy, sausage-y cornbread stuffing with corn nut magic dust for an extra hit of corn flavor.

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Slow-Cooked Green Beans With Harissa and Cumin

Impossibly soft and caramelized green beans that only ask one thing of you: patience while they roast.

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Cranberry-Fig Sauce

Figs bathed in butter and sugar bring a sweet, tawny balance to tangy cranberries.

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Winter Squash Agrodolce

A vinegar-and-chile glaze adds heat to sweet squash, spicing up the traditional Thanksgiving flavor profile.

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Extra-Buttery Mashed Potatoes

Drying the cooked potatoes in the pan means that they'll absorb that much more flavor from your herb-infused dairy. Don't skip this step!

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Roasted Beets with Grapefruit and Rosemary

If using different-colored beets for this recipe, remember to toss them separately so they don’t stain one another.

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Green Beans With Mushroom XO Sauce

In Hong Kong, where XO sauce was invented, dried shrimp or scallops and Chinese ham are combined with chiles to create a powerhouse condiment that is salty, spicy, and funky. This recipe uses mushrooms in place of the pork, a cheeky reference to green bean casseroles.  

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Winter Slaw With Red Pears And Pumpkin Seeds

Trimming a generous amount of the stem from the Brussels sprouts makes it quite a bit easier to tease apart the leaves for this winter slaw recipe.

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Parker House Rolls

A top coat of melted butter and salt makes these dinner rolls irresistible.

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Slow-Cooked Winter Squash with Sage and Thyme

Douse squash in lots of oil and let it slow-roast to golden-deliciousness in this hands-off dish.  

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If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It Stuffing

Like a greatest hits album, this recipe combines the essential elements and the most successful techniques from all of our most popular stuffing recipes.

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Savory Sweet Potato Casserole

Brown butter and rosemary are the ultimate, timeless pairing for sweet potatoes. Making your own breadcrumbs from sourdough bread shoots this recipe into all-star status, but using store-bought in a pinch is perfectly fine too.

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Hasselback Butternut Squash With Bay Leaves

For this holiday-worthy recipe, roasting the butternut with several bay leaves slipped between the slices results in a subtle aromatic backdrop for the chile glaze.

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Cheesy Brussels Sprouts Gratin

You can't go wrong with cheese, cream, and pancetta.

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Blistered Green Beans with Tomato-Almond Pesto

This kicky sauce, inspired by Spanish romesco, uses cherry tomatoes.

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Charred Brussels Sprouts With Warm Honey Glaze

Roasty toasty Brussels soak up this delicious honey sauce, creating a combo you just can’t beat.  

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Crispy Smashed Potatoes With Walnut Dressing

And on top? A condiment made up of walnuts, anchovies, garlic, and red pepper flakes that’s the ultimate umami bomb.

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Roasted Carrots and Red Onions with Fennel and Mint

Toasting the seeds and nuts in oil forms the base of a complex vinaigrette.

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The New Classic Stuffing

A protein like sausage lends the stuffing those all-important crispy bites, and the fat contributes essential flavor.

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Charred Bean and Pea Salad

A riff on a three-bean salad with a garlic-chile-maple-lime dressing that we can’t quit.

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Spicy Cranberry Sauce

Jalapeño and lime give this year's cranberry sauce the zesty-spicy kick it deserves.

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Seared Mushrooms with Garlic and Thyme

Our idea of magic mushrooms is crisp, golden (legal) substances with the power to lend a bass note of flavor to grain salads, turn a piece of ricotta toast into a meal, or stand alone as a savory side.

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Romano Beans with Mustard Vinaigrette and Walnuts

A bean salad fit for an elaborate Italian dinner party. Make it happen.

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Charred Sweet Potatoes With Toum

This recipe is nice twice. The roasting and honey-glazing method is a great way to make sweet potatoes, and you also get an eggless garlic sauce that you’ll use again and again.

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Pull-Apart Potato Rolls

Use these to make amazing leftover turkey sandwiches.

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Sautéed Pears with Bacon and Mustard Dressing

Pears and walnuts are delicious together; walnuts and bacon make total sense. When you combine them all, it’s magic.

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“Tandoori” Carrots with Vadouvan Spice and Yogurt

What’s vadouvan, you ask? It’s just one of our new favorite exotic spice blends, a French-Indian formula that includes onion, shallots, and garlic added to a currylike mix.

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Skillet Cornbread with Chives

A true Southerner wouldn’t dare add sugar to this cornbread recipe, but a Yankee might miss it. Do what you will; we don’t judge.

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Warm Eggplant Salad With Walnuts

Date syrup gives this savory, nutty eggplant salad the perfect amount of sweetness.

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Shaved Fennel Salad with Croutons and Walnuts

This is an antidote to every side salad that ever was. Instead of meh greens, it’s got shavings of fennel that bend and twist but keep their refreshing crunch.

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Honeynut Squash With Radicchio and Miso

What’s a honeynut squash, you ask? It looks like a miniature butternut squash and has sweet, firm flesh that stands up to any cooking method.

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Grilled Carrots With Avocado and Mint

You actually don’t have to bother with peeling the carrots for this recipe—not only do the thin skins pack lots nutrients, but you’ll also get a better char with them on.

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Cranberry Chutney with Orange, Figs, and Mustard

If using frozen cranberries, which are just as good for this recipe, don’t bother thawing them first.

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Roasted Cauliflower with Capers and Parmesan

This is how vegetables can crisp and caramelize, and not slowly steam and turn to mush.

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Lemony Brussels Sprouts With Bacon And Breadcrumbs

Cooking the Brussels in two stages for this recipe ensures that the cores will be tender and the outer leaves will still have bite.

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Lemony Herb Salad

This simple salad is all about the herbs, so put your best effort into finding the prettiest greens.

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Miso-Glazed Turnips

A simple stovetop technique transforms turnips by deploying a secret ingredient that may be hiding in the back of your fridge.

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Slow-Cooked Eggplant With Lemon and Fennel Seeds

Use this master formula as your guide—but feel free to get creative with the add-ins. A dried chile? Sure! A few sprigs of herbs from your windowsill? Why not?

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Twice-Roasted Squash With Parmesan Butter and Grains

Slowly roasting whole, skin-on squash until it’s buttery soft means you can break it open with a spoon.

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Butternut Squash Steaks With Brown Butter-Sage Sauce

Applying the classic steakhouse butter-basting technique to slabs of butternut squash turns it into a hearty vegetarian main.

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Spicy Cauliflower Sabzi With Cashews

If you’re spice-averse, just leave the chiles out!

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Shaved Squash Salad with Tomatoes and Ricotta Salata

The juices from the tomatoes, squash, and dressing make for a magical combination—you’ll need crusty bread to soak it up with.

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Cider-and-Bourbon-Glazed Shallots

This recipe would also work with small cipolline onions or larger torpedo-shaped shallots.

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Perfect Oven-Roasted Potatoes

Crispy. Creamy. Salty. And all the other things roasted potatoes were born to be.

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Seared Radicchio and Roasted Beets

Roasting beets over high heat yields charred skin—a nice balance with the sweet flesh.

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Grain Salad with Pickled Onions and Herbs

Freekeh is green wheat with a slightly smoky flavor we love, but any whole grain you have on hand will work.

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Spiced Marinated Beets

Use any whole spices you like for this beets recipe; just make sure you sizzle them in oil first to bring out their flavor.

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Celery, Apple, and Peanut Salad

You can mix and match the types of apples with whatever you have on hand. Doing so brings out a more complex flavor as well as a more colorful salad.

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Slow-Roasted Bell Peppers

We streamlined this recipe to get excellent results in an hour; serve alongside roast chicken or spooned over pan-fried fish or toasted bread.

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Raw Butternut Squash Ribbon Salad

Yes, you can eat butternut squash raw!

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Roasted Sweet Potatoes With Miso-Tahini Sauce

That three-ingredient sauce can go on anything. Double batch = necessary.

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Red Potato and Shishito Pepper Hash

Go hard on those potatoes and let them get good and browned before tossing them in the pan. That way they’ll keep their crunch after being doused with the spicy mayonnaise.

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Crispy Roasted Broccoli with Tahini Sauce

High heat and the simplest sauce ever make for roasted veggies that feel like a dish, not an afterthought.  

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