Thanksgiving Menu List with Recipes, Ingredient Checklist, and Printable Planner

In this post I am sharing a Thanksgiving day menu list, links to recipes, a printable ingredient checklist, and day of planner! Consider this post your ultimate guide to planning and hosting a stress-free Thanksgiving.

This year is the first time that we are hosting Thanksgiving at our house! It feels so adult-y and I’m really excited to be hosting, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little overwhelmed. If you follow me on Instagram, then you know I’m currently fixing up our kitchen for the occasion (more to come on that later – read about it here!) and I also asked for recommendations for the menu. After texting with my family, reading through your favorite Thanksgiving dishes, and searching on Pinterest, I think I came up with a Thanksgiving day menu list that everyone will love!

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Once I sat down and planned the menu, I felt much more equipped to take on hosting Thanksgiving for the first time. I have carefully read through each of the recipes listed below to make sure they had good reviews, mostly normal ingredients, and seemed fairly easy to make. Thankfully my family offered to bring a few of these dishes, so I won’t be making all of these by myself. I also created a free printable ingredient checklist that you can use to plan your grocery shopping trip.

I really want to enjoy cooking on Thanksgiving morning, so I put together a day of planner to help me stay organized in the kitchen! I’m planning on time blocking my cooking schedule to make sure I have enough space in the oven, I get the appetizers out in time, and the food is warm when it’s time to eat. It’s also important to make sure you plan for enough time to get yourself ready and tidy up. I’m hoping this day of planner will allow for a stress free Thanksgiving day! I’m picturing a cozy morning watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving day parade and playing Christmas music while I cook.

Breakfast

Since we have family coming from out of town we decided to plan a late lunch / early dinner at 3pm. I feel like this is perfect because you can basically eat two rounds of Thanksgiving food! I know my husband and I will be seriously hangry if we don’t eat breakfast, so I’m going to make this french toast recipe to eat while we watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving day parade! This might just be the thing I’m looking forward to eating the most on Thanksgiving day! You can make it the day before, so it’s not too much extra work the day of.

Appetizers

I’m planning on creating a beautiful grazing board for everyone to snack on when they arrive. While a charcuterie board has mostly meats and cheeses, a grazing board also includes fruits, veggies, dips, sweets, etc. Grazing boards are more aesthetically pleasing and fun to create, in my opinion! I plan on picking up seasonal items from Trader Joes and I’m going to use this marble board. It’s perfect because it spins, so you can just turn the board rather than reaching over all of the food to grab the piece that you want. Check out my review of some of the Trader Joe’s fall items here.

I’m also going to make this baked cranberry brie bread that my friend recommended! She made it last year and said it only took 15 minutes and was a crowd favorite! It looks like such a festive recipe!

Lunch / Dinner

Turkey – Thankfully my dad is taking care of this because I have no idea how to cook a turkey and the idea of it seriously grosses me out.

Crockpot mashed potatoes and gravy – Crockpot recipes are perfect for Thanksgiving to free up space on the stove top!

Rolls and cinnamon honey butter – Make extra butter to put in little Ball jars to give to your guests to take home!

Autumn Apple Salad – This looks amazing! I like the idea of a fresh, sweet salad paired with all of the comfort foods.

Stuffing – Honestly, I skip this dish when filling my plate every year but this recipe looks really good!

Green bean casserole – This recipe looks really close to the way my mom makes it, which is always one of my favorites!

Sweet potato casserole – My personal favorite Thanksgiving dish!

Cheesy potatoes – I chose this recipe because it looks easy and I like the crunch on top. Also, when searching for a cheesy potato recipe I learned that some people call these “funeral potatoes”… depressing much?!

Dessert

Pie, obviously! My grandma offered to bring these so I’m not sure what kinds we will have but I’m hoping for pumpkin and apple! I’m also planning on making my homemade whipped cream and picking up some vanilla ice cream. To make your own whipped cream all you need to do is mix together 1 pint of heavy cream, 1/4 cup sugar, 1 tsp of pure vanilla extract, and a pinch of seal salt in a chilled bowl. I learned this recipe from Joanna Gaines’ cookbook and I’ll never go back to store-bought whipped cream. It really is so much better! You might need to give it an extra whip with your mixer right before serving.

Drinks

We will obviously have our normal party drinks like soda, water, wine, etc. But I think it’s fun to also offer a seasonal punch at holiday parties! I likethis recipe because you can use either champagne or ginger ale depending on whether you want to make a cocktail or mock-tail. This glass pumpkin dispenser is so cute for Thanksgiving or any fall themed party!

Since I’m anticipating that we will likely have quite a few leftovers, I purchased these to-go containers so everyone can take some extra food home. Tip: leave a sharpie marker out to write what’s inside on the lid.

I hope this post was helpful if you are also hosting Thanksgiving this year, or if you are just looking for a delicious recipe to make for the holiday! If you make any of the recipes from this Thanksgiving menu list and your family likes them, you can send them to this blog post to easily find them again! Hover over any image on this post to save it to your Pinterest board to reference later. Thank you so much for supporting my blog!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Xo, Ciara