How to Enjoy a Healthier Thanksgiving Meal

Here in the UK, Thanksgiving isn’t a holiday that we celebrate but when looking at it from a food view, it is a lot like Christmas.  And we’ve all had that post-Christmas feeling where you have eaten too much rich food and feel a bit bloated.  So, I decided to do some research on how to have a healthier Thanksgiving meal (because it comes up first) and grab some ideas for Christmas as well!

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Light appetizers or starters

Let’s start with starters or appetizers, often the first course of the meal.  Often these can be quite heavy and mean you are a bit full before you get the main course.  So, what ideas can you use to have a lighter starter?

Fried sweet potato cubes

I’m still coming to find the best ways to serve sweet potatoes as I admit, they aren’t my favourite.  Soup is a good option, but this idea of cubed and fried potatoes sounds similar to a dish we make with normal potatoes, garlic and Parmesan. 

All you need is to add some olive oil to a frying pan and put it on a moderate heat.  When it is hot, add the cubed potatoes and cook until crispy and the edges are a little darker.  You can the sprinkle with something like cinnamon and brown sugar or your favourite herbs for a quick and versatile starter.

Fall salads

Salads are often seen as a summer thing but there’s no reason you can reinvent them as a fall dish and make for a healthier Thanksgiving starter. 

Add a little meat or nuts to a standard salad mix to give them a little more substance and use a light oil and vinegar dressing along with favourite herbs to add flavour.

Lettuce wraps

Lettuce wraps are very popular and for good reason – wrapping ingredients in lettuce rather than bread or a wrap is lighter and less filling. 

You can use thin strips of meat that are seasoned and serve with a light sauce.  Iceberg or romaine lettuces are the favourite for this kind of dish.

Go for low carb options

One of the big trends at the moment is to go low-carb and to cut back on the number of carbohydrates that we consume.  So, what should you do if you have someone coming for Thanksgiving who is following a low carb or Keto diet?  The answer is to look for a few key dishes to add to the menu that are ideal for low carb options and will please your guests.

Broccoli and cheese soup

One of the classic soup combinations is broccoli and stilton but this can be changed to almost any cheese you like.  We made a soupmaker version that used broccoli and cheddar.  This is a great starter and will be ideal for your low-carb guest. 

You can even replace any flour in the dish with xanthan gum – you will need less than ½ teaspoon in the recipe to thicken it to a tasty soup.

Sausage and cheese stuffing

Most types of stuffing use bread in it but this isn’t ideal for someone going low carb.  So, one option is to alter the recipe. 

Leave out the bread and instead make the stuffing by chopping sausage into smaller pieces then adding onions, pepper, celery and any other flavourings with some salt, pepper and garlic.  Stir in the eggs then cook in a shallow glass dish until brown.

Garlic and rosemary mashed cauliflower

Your low carb guest probably isn’t going to want too many potatoes but still, there are mashed dishes you can add as a side.  This dish uses cauliflower in place of the potatoes. 

Pan fry garlic with some rosemary for 2-3 minutes until fragrant.  Add some cooked cauliflower so that it collects the flavour then move to a bowl and add a little butter or cream and salt and pepper.  Mash and serve.

What to serve instead of potatoes

Talking of potatoes, what if you aren’t so much low carb as just sick of potatoes?  We do tend to use them in a lot of meals but what you can use in their place as side dishes for the Thanksgiving meal?

Kohlrabi

Kohlrabi is a part of the cabbage family and is a pale green vegetable that has a taste somewhere between a sweet turnip and a water chestnut.  It is a fall seasonal food that is usually around from July until November so you should be able to get it fresh.  Go for medium sized bulbs with crisp, green leaves.  There are a few cooking options:

• Roast – steam for 4 minutes then roast for about 45 minutes
• Steam – takes around 12 minutes
• Stir fry – takes around 6 minutes
• Cook the leaves like a cabbage

You can serve it on its own or add it to something like Swiss Chard with lemon sauce for a great vegetable side dish.

Cauliflower

Cauliflower is not a new addition to the roast dinner menu but there are lots of things you can do with it.  Serve it on its own or in a cauliflower cheese are two of the favourites in our house.  You can also mash it and have it as a started with something like this Asian Cabbage Salad recipe.

Turnip

Turnip is a root vegetable that makes an ideal candidate to replace mashed potatoes on your Thanksgiving menu.  Cook it for 20-30 minutes (or about 12 minutes in the Instant Pot with other vegetables) then you can mash it with some cream or butter.  If you encounter it, you can do the same with swede (but that might be a British thing!)

Daikon

Daikon is a radish that comes from South East Asia and can be eaten in a range of different ways.  You can boil it, mash it and season it like potatoes as well as fry it or even pickle it to add a little extra zing to the meal.

Try some different side dishes

For lots of people, Thanksgiving means turkey – the same with Christmas.  Sometimes people have more than one meat.  But one of the things you can change around is the side dishes you serve with it.  We’ve mentioned ideas to replace potatoes, here are a couple of ideas to jazz up your side dishes.

Carrot fries with Parmesan

I think Parmesan adds something unique to almost any dish and carrots are no different.  Cut the carrots into thin slices, like fries, and toss with some olive oil.  Lay then out on a baking tray and bake until slightly crispy on the edges.  Sprinkle with sea salt, Parmesan and shredded basil then pop them back in the oven until the Parmesan has melted.

Roasted green beans

Another fall vegetable, green beans are often steamed but you can roast them to offer a slightly different flavour.  Toss them in olive oil and add a little garlic if you like.  Add them to a baking sheet then add salt and pepper and roast until cooked, about 15 minutes.  You can also add some Parmesan to them if you aren’t doing the carrot dish.

Healthy Thanksgiving leftover ideas

The last step on our journey to healthier Thanksgiving meals is to look at what to do with the leftovers – because there almost always are some!  From leftover turkey to those extra potatoes no-one ate, there are always leftovers and therefore things you can do with them.

Hot turkey melt

This isn’t rocket science, but I thought I would include it because there’s nothing nicer than a warmed sandwich with something like turkey in it.  Grab a favourite bread or even something like a ciabatta roll or a panini and add the turkey sliced thinly.  For a perfect addition, mix mayo with mustard, about 50-50 and add this to the bread.  Finish with a slice of cheese on either side and pop in the skillet on medium heat until the cheese melts – just watch it doesn’t cook too quickly!

Spicy sweet potato soup

If you swapped the normal potatoes for sweet potatoes this year, you might find you have some left.  One of my favourite ways to eat sweet potatoes is in a soup.  If they are uncooked, then pop them in water and boil until soft.  Add to a bowl with a little chili powder and cayenne pepper then blend for 1-2 minutes.  You can add a little Greek yoghurt to make it creamier.

Turkey and stuffing chilli

You can use that leftover turkey and stuffing in another interesting way – by making a chilli for the next day.  Take some kidney beans and cook about halfway then add celery, onions and peppers.  Cook until the beans are soft and add the turkey and stuffing.  Season with chili powder, cumin, paprika, salt and pepper then serve.

Make those healthier Thanksgiving meals!

There’s no reason that Thanksgiving has to be all healthy – it is a holiday after all!  But by making one or two small substitutions to your normal menu, you can feel a little less bloated and stuffed and enjoy your food a little more.

What’s your favourite Thanksgiving dish that you would never substitute?  Tell us in the comments!