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What to Eat Before Thanksgiving Dinner
Whether you’re hosting or not, Thanksgiving dinner has a way of taking over more than just one Thursday in November. In the lead-up to the big day, it’s easy to (almost) forget that everyone still has to eat dinner, even though the upcoming feast is occupying most of the space in both our brains and our refrigerators. Even if you’re just making a dish to bring, or getting ready to travel to someone else’s home for a few days, the Monday of Thanksgiving week tends to somehow catch most of us by surprise each year. “What am I supposed to feed everyone?” becomes a common refrain.
Then Thanksgiving morning arrives, and brings its own challenges. What time is dinner? Is the kitchen open or closed, occupied or not? Do people need a meal or two before the turkey dinner? What about snacks? Is it better to stay a little hungry, or eat normally until the feast? With an entire day culturally centered around food, navigating the what-when-how-much of eating can be surprisingly complicated.
That’s why we’ve put together this guide to the Thanksgiving pre-game: How to plan for meals Monday through Wednesday, and what to do about the awkward pre-dinner hours on Thursday, so you can keep your focus on the holiday meal.
What to Make for Dinner During Thanksgiving Week
Monday through Wednesday of Thanksgiving week are really the toughest evenings, especially if kid activities or family travel needs are a part of the schedule. These are the days to avoid elaborate cooking or anything new, risky, or adventurous. Here are some strategies you can use to choose dinners that will keep everyone fed with minimal fuss:
- One Pot to Rule Them All. Make a big portion of a well-liked food on Monday, so you can eat it on repeat for a couple of days. Hate the idea of leftovers on repeat? You can always repurpose instead — think spaghetti and meatballs that become meatball subs, chili that gets a new life as walking tacos, or the leftover sauce and cheese from a baked pasta dish that will top English muffin pizzas or tuck into pizza-dillas later in the week.
- Eat the Fridge. This strategy is especially important if you’re hosting and need as much refrigerator space as you can get. Employ some smart clean-out-the-fridge meals to minimize food waste and make the space you’ll need for your turkey and fixings (plus keep the cooking as low-effort as possible before the big day arrives).
- Pull out greens, vegetables, cooked proteins and cheeses for a DIY Salad Bar
- If you’re a confident and adventurous cook, throw your odds and ends into a stock pot for a clean-out-the-fridge soup
- Make a quesadilla or top-your-own-pizza bar with whatever’s on hand
- Throw together a pasta dish using this Pasta with Oil and Garlic recipe as a base, and add sauteed or roasted vegetables, bits of cooked proteins, or whatever needs to be used up
- Make top-your-own rice bowls, letting everyone load up their rice with different bits from the fridge, plus pantry flavors — soy sauce, sesame oil, sriracha, chili crisp, salsa, favorite salad dressings, or seasoning blends
- Take the Help Where You Can Get It. If ever there was a time to build easy meals off of convenience foods, Thanksgiving week is it. Make your life as easy as possible by starting dinner with prepared items:
- Use this big list as inspiration for using up rotisserie chicken in a variety of meals
- Grab ready-made soup at the store and heat it up with grilled cheese for dipping
- Bake frozen chicken tenders and use them in wraps, sandwiches, on top of salads, or covered in tomato sauce and melted cheese for a quick “chicken parm”
- Use fish fingers instead of cooking fresh fish for fish tacos
- Pick up some frozen meatballs and jarred sauce to top your pasta or make fast meatball subs
- Make Wednesday a “No Leftovers Zone.” Nobody wants to go into Thanksgiving with containers of uneaten leftovers languishing in the fridge. If you’ve got random items hanging around, pull it all out and make a “please eat” buffet — who cares if the kids end up eating four spoonfuls of leftover mac and cheese, some carrots and hummus, and half a burger, or go straight for a bowl of cereal with their favorite yogurt and a cookie because nothing else appeals? It’s one night. Of course, if the budget allows, you could join the masses of people who will be ordering in that night (DoorDash says the Wednesday before Thanksgiving is one of the busiest nights of the year). And if all else fails and you need to make something, make it an easy meal that can be made per person, like sandwiches, breakfast for dinner, individual pizzas, or a top-your-own baked potato bar.
Thanksgiving Morning: What to Eat Before the Feast
Obviously, the way you handle food on Thanksgiving morning is going to change depending on your circumstances. The timing of your family’s celebration is definitely one big factor; families who gather for Thanksgiving dinner in the late afternoon or early evening will probably need to eat more substantially during the day than those who start feasting in the early afternoon. Another big factor is who’s doing the cooking and hosting, and whether there are any overnight guests on hand who will wake up hungry. If you’re busy in the kitchen on Thanksgiving morning, the last thing you want is to have people getting underfoot while they prepare meals for themselves.
Despite the temptation to stay hungry for the big dinner to come, experts generally advise the opposite. Eating earlier in the day, as you normally would, can help keep you from overeating at holiday meals or feeling too ill from excessive hunger to really enjoy yourself. (Plus, who among us is really good company when we’re hangry?) So having a turkey-day breakfast strategy, at the very least, is invaluable.
Since a heartier breakfast or brunch can also help tide people over until a mid-afternoon meal, it may be more practical than a laid-back, cold cereal and toast approach. Still, for many of us, Thanksgiving is not the morning to be tethered to the stove cooking a big brunch for everyone. Try some make-ahead options instead:
- Overnight oats or baked oatmeal are great ways to make a hearty and easy breakfast
- Stock the fridge with chia pudding, Swiss Muesli, or the makings for yogurt banana splits
- Try a make-ahead egg-based casserole like broccoli cheese strata, or breakfast burritos or make-ahead egg sandwiches you can pull from the freezer and reheat as people are ready to enjoy them
- Or go all out with a make-ahead treat like Cheddar and Apple French Toast, Holiday Quiche Lorraine, or Caramel Pecan French Toast
And if dinner will be on the later side, and you think you’ll need a light lunch strategy as well, you can’t go wrong with something like simple soup (canned, prepared, or from the freezer — no cooking today!) and crackers. Alternatively, you could have a snack board ready to go, with a heavy helping of sliced vegetables, fruit (maybe with pumpkin butter or cinnamon yogurt dip), hummus, and other small bites that will satisfy your family’s appetites but not be overly filling.
Regardless of what you choose to do, if it’s successful, consider making it a tradition! In my family, we always do breakfast for dinner the night before Thanksgiving, and we always make homemade pizza on the Saturday after, when we’re starting to need a break from leftovers. Knowing both of these things are part of our family routine reduces decision fatigue around the holiday, and helps me keep my focus on the main event — which, honestly, is enjoying the time we have together, no matter what’s on the table.
