Planning
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Make your guest list. Start here — everything else depends on the number.
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Check your seating before anything else. Make sure everyone fits at your current table. If not, decide now where the overflow sits — do you have another table? Enough chairs? Solve this in October, not the week of.
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Type up your menu — and plan around your people. Note who's vegan, vegetarian, or just a fussy eater. Don't rule out the young people who don't eat turkey — maybe they'll eat a steak. There's a place for everyone at the table if you plan for them now.
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Break the menu into shopping waves. Go through every dish and split the ingredients into what can be purchased today and what has to wait until close to the holiday.
- Sweet potatoes, for example, can be bought two weeks in advance — but they're always on sale the week before Thanksgiving, so you may want to wait.
- If you're saving supermarket points for your turkey, you might wait on that too — but remember: a frozen turkey needs at least four days to defrost in the refrigerator, more depending on the size. Work backward from Thanksgiving Day.
- Start food shopping early for everything that keeps.
The shopping lists, down to the day
Get the supermarket lists down to the day each item will be purchased. This can be done weeks in advance — one list per trip, so when the week comes you're just working the plan, not making it up in the aisle.
Roasting pans. Purchase or find your roasting pans now. And remember: if you use disposable pans, you must double them up — and preferably set them into a non-disposable pan — so they don't collapse when they come out of the oven cooked.
The beverage list. Now, with plenty of time to spare, take a look at your beverage list. Do you need wine? Do you need seltzers? Do you need mixers? What do your friends and family drink? Do you need a specialty cocktail for when people walk in? If so, make a list of what you need for it — is it a cider spritz? A Hugo spritz? A Prosecco spritz? Whatever it is, make the list and go buy it, because all of this can be purchased weeks in advance.
Ice. Make sure you have ice cubes made — make them in trays and empty them into Ziploc bags in your freezer, a little at a time, starting now.
Don't forget the coffee run. In planning your supermarket trips, don't forget coffee, tea, milk or half-and-half. This goes in addition to the beverage list, and it can be purchased way in advance.
The drinks station that runs itself
Set the station in a living room area or den — but not in the kitchen, and not in the dining room. Have different types of glasses, of course ice with tongs, lemons, limes, and oranges for garnish, seltzers, vodka, tequila, gin (if someone drinks that), wine, Prosecco in an ice bucket, opened and ready to go — and Cocktail Stix. This way, guests can prepare any type of drink they'd like by themselves.
The stuffing, piece by piece
The cornbread. You have options: make it homemade from a recipe, use a box, or buy it ready-made at the store. Just know the store-bought ones run a little sweeter — fine, if that's how you like it. If you're making your own, make the cornbread at least a month ahead and freeze it. One big job, done and dusted in October.
The bread. The second part of stuffing is still bread. You can buy the cubes in a bag at the store — but here's what I like to do: I take leftover hamburger and hot dog rolls from the summer (they're already in my freezer), let them sit out and dry, or dry them in a 200° oven for an hour. Crumble them up, and into the freezer they go — stuffing bread, ready when I am.
Laurie's Cornbread Stuffing
For a 12–20 lb turkey.
The cornbread: one 9-inch pan of cornbread — made from a box, made from scratch, or purchased.
You'll need: - 1 bag seasoned stuffing cubes — or the same amount from an 8-to-10 pack of frozen hamburger rolls, cut into cubes and toasted in a 200° oven (only if you had leftovers in your freezer from the summer) - 8 stalks of celery - 2 large onions - 2 apples - Poultry seasoning, or a combination of rosemary, thyme, parsley, and sage - 2 sticks unsalted butter - 1 box chicken stock - Salt and pepper
How to make it: 1. Chop all the vegetables and the apples, and sauté them in the two sticks of unsalted butter. 2. In a very large bowl, combine the sautéed vegetables with the crumbled cornbread and the cubes of bread — toasted and somewhat hard. 3. Add your spices: the poultry seasoning, or the combination of rosemary, thyme, parsley, and sage. 4. Open the box of chicken stock and pour it in lightly as you mix the stuffing, just until it's moist. Don't over-water it. 5. Add salt and pepper.
Make it ahead: Chill the stuffing for up to four days. If you need to make it further ahead of time, you can freeze it — and defrost it the day before Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving morning: Put 75% of the stuffing into baking pans — I like to put it into the pans I'm going to serve directly out of. The other 25% is going into the turkey, but I'm going to wait about three hours into the turkey cooking, so I don't worry about it affecting the temperature of the finished turkey.
The 25% that goes in the turkey (my way): After about three hours of the turkey baking, I take paper towels in one of my long tongs, take the turkey out for five minutes, and get whatever liquid has puddled inside the turkey out. Now, this is not for the faint-hearted. Anybody can just bake all of the stuffing in baking pans — but if you're like me, I want a lot of the flavor of the turkey. So I get rid of the excess liquid, then I take that 25% of the stuffing and put it in very loosely in the cavity of the turkey, and put it back in the oven to finish cooking. When I think my turkey is done at 165°, I take the temperature of that stuffing. If the rest of the turkey is done and the stuffing is not, I just take that stuffing out, mix it with the other stuffing, and bake it again.
Putting the stuffing together. Now that you've prepped the bread and the cornbread, you can actually make the stuffing a week in advance — or on the Friday and weekend before Thanksgiving. The stuffing really comprises sautéing up onion, celery, apples, and lots of herbs. Sauté everything in butter — that's number one. Chop up fresh parsley, and your cranberries if you like, add the cornbread and the toasted bread cubes, and toss it all with chicken stock.
Number two: the cranberry relish. Any type of cranberry relish you intend to serve can be made the weekend before, on the Friday before Thanksgiving.
Get the turkey defrosting. Make sure you've taken your turkey out of your freezer and put it in your refrigerator. This requires some amount of space, so make sure you've allocated it.
Number three: set your table
You can set your table a week in advance or more. This way, if you need more napkins, you know now. Polish your silverware. Make sure you have enough serving platters — get all of your serving platters out and put them on your dining table. Get them out of the kitchen and out of the way. Include gravy boats, ladles, serving utensils — more serving pieces than you could possibly think of. This includes plates for your appetizers, plates for your dessert, dessert cutlery, cups and saucers. If you have anywhere to put them, set them aside so you're not going into cabinets when your guests are there. Make sure you have plenty of paper towels, towels, and dishwasher detergent — and ideas for how you want to decorate your table.
Number four: get your dry brine ready
If you're going to make a dry brine — with lots of salt, brown sugar, spices, garlic, chili powder, rosemary, and thyme — get it ready now for your turkey rub, so Tuesday is just rub and done.
Your Thanksgiving timeline
Monday before Thanksgiving. Uncover your turkey and run cold water inside it. See if it's defrosted. If not, put it in one of your disposable pans and throw it back in the fridge, uncovered. Any vegetable prep can be done now: if you're cubing sweet potatoes, if you're making a sweet potato pie, if you're snipping string beans — all the prep can happen Monday and Tuesday. If you're making a potato gratin like I do: peel your Idaho potatoes, slice them on a mandolin, put them in cold water, and into the fridge until Wednesday. On Wednesday I'll just drain them, layer them with butter, cream, and lots of cheeses, and bake them — to be reheated on Thursday.
Tuesday. Whole sweet potatoes can get wrapped in foil. Sweet potato pies can be made — the marshmallows go on later, during the cooking. Make sure again you have all your ingredients, and extra stock for your gravy. Your turkey should be defrosted again: put water inside and out, pat it dry, take your dry brine and put it outside, inside, and underneath the skin, and put it back in the refrigerator, uncovered, to let the brine soak into the turkey.
Wednesday. Wednesday is a good day to think about anything on the menu that you have missed. Do you need more vegetables to purchase? Do you need more desserts — or are people bringing desserts? Are you going and buying apple pies and key lime pies and anything else that's good in your area? If you are baking, Wednesday is the right day to bake for Thanksgiving. And assemble that gratin: drain the potatoes, layer with butter, cream and cheeses, bake it today, reheat it Thursday.
Thanksgiving Day. I put my turkey in very early and cook it for about three hours before I put some stuffing in — and I put it in very lightly. Most of the stuffing is cooked in another pan, to be mixed with the stuffing from the turkey at a later time. If you have room in the oven, get those sweet potatoes in, because they can take hours. Have your turkey out at least an hour before your guests come: wrap it in foil, let it rest and stay hot — and that way you have your oven free for hors d'oeuvres, or any last-minute sweet potato pies or roasted vegetables, as you need.
New to hosting? Start with the smaller version of this same system: Friendsgiving for First-Time Hosts: A Caterer's No-Panic Guide.