Best Thanksgiving Dinner Alternatives

With all the Thanksgiving meals serving nothing but turkey as the main dish, a desire for anything else is natural. These options are tasty and involve the whole family.

There are those who would look down their nose at anyone making anything other than turkey for Thanksgiving as “not-traditional” or “cheating.”

Don’t listen to those people.

While making a traditional Thanksgiving turkey meal takes hours of slaving in the kitchen and makes it difficult to include the whole family, alternatives to the bird are fun, delicious and encourage everyone to pitch in.

Make-your-own Pizza

Nothing could be easier or more fun than pulling all the ingredients together for homemade pizza and letting the guest do all the work of making their personal meal.

Preparing the pizza dough is even easier using the dough cycle on a bread machine. The trick is to plan ahead. Most bread machines can handle between a batch and a half to a double batch – just experiment to see what a particular model will handle. That will make about 3-4 small pizzas. Most dough cycles will take between 1 to 1 1/2 hours, depending on model. Use these numbers to determine how far ahead the dough needs to be prepared.

Alternatively, use store-bought crusts, English muffins, French bread or tortillas for the pizza crusts.

Prepare bowls of marinara sauce or spaghetti sauce, pizza or mozzarella cheese and favorite toppings, such as pepperoni, sausage, hamburger or vegetables. Each guest can prepare their dough, top it and pop it in the oven – just how they like it.

This plan works even better in a home with a large oven or multiple ovens so that everyone can eat at more or less the same time.

Taco Bar

This is essentially the same concept as “Make-your-own Pizza” only instead of bowls of pizza fixings, lay out bowls of Mexican or Taco blend cheese, hard and soft shell tacos, taco seasoned beef and chicken, salsa and prepared tomatoes and lettuce. For those who want to “do it right” try authentic Mexican tacos.

The taco bar as an alternative has some advantages. First, the preparation work can be done well in advance of the Thanksgiving meal and warmed up just before guests arrive. Second, a taco bar allows everyone to eat at more or less the same time – no waiting for the pizzas to get done.

Barbecue

There’s something rustic and daring about braving cold November temperatures to barbecue that’s perfectly in the spirit of of Thanksgiving.

A gas grill would be a good investment for this turkey alternative to avoid huddling in the cold waiting for charcoal to ash over.

Children can help by shaking up zip-up storage bags with meat and marinade and adults can take turns braving the weather to turn the meat.

If poultry simply must be on the menu, try the fun and unusual beer can chicken.

Chinese Food

Anyone who has seen “A Christmas Story” may associate Chinese Food as a fun last-ditch holiday meal option. But it works great as a Plan A as well.

In particular, the children and grandchildren will enjoy filling up the egg roll wrappers with fillings, wrapping them up, and sealing them with a bit of flour and water. Most egg roll wraps have an acceptable, simple recipe on the package. Just be sure the adults, not the children, are the ones placing the rolls in the deep fat fryer.

For a low-fat alternative, try baked egg rolls. A tasty dessert option is to fill the egg roll wrappers with cherry pie or other pie filling and sprinkling a little powdered sugar on top.

Deep Fried Turkey

Yes, technically deep fried turkey isn’t really a turkey alternative. But if the family absolutely insists on the big bird, deep frying might be enough of a change of pace to avoid turkey fatigue.

Expect to lay out between $40 and $200 for a basic turkey deep fryer to try this alternative. As with all frying, be extremely careful around the fryer, do it outside, and keep the children away.

Paula Deen of the Food Network offers a helpful tip to make sure hot oil doesn’t spill outside of the fryer. Before turning on the fryer, place the turkey inside and fill with water to cover the turkey. If the level goes up more than 3/4 of the way up the fryer, either the turkey is too big or the fryer is too small.

Remove the turkey and note the level to know how much oil to put in the fryer. Be certain that both the turkey and fryer are totally dry before proceeding to avoid popping oil.

If done correctly, this will result in a juicy turkey meat with a crunch on the outside.

These ideas are just a launching point for great turkey alternatives. With a little creativity, any host can come up with a Thanksgiving to remember.