Thanksgiving Entertaining Checklist
Thanksgiving can be stressful whether it's your first time hosting or your fifteenth. Use our Thanksgiving planner for time-saving tips and strategies to help you spend less time in the kitchen and more time focusing on delicious food and great company.
Three Weeks Ahead:
- Prepare your guest list. Call or e-mail guests to confirm how many people will be there. Find out if confirmed guests have any special dietary needs.
- Plan your seating arrangement. Where will guests sit during dinner? Do you have enough seating and dishes for everyone? Place a rental order, if necessary, for tables, chairs, glasses, plates and flatware.
Two Weeks Ahead:
- Decide on your final menu and collect recipes. Select some dishes that taste good at room temperature, so you won't have to worry about your hot entree getting cold, or your cold dessert melting.
- Assign cooking projects. Divide Thanksgiving Day duties among family members or guests.
- Secure a turkey. Order your fresh turkey, or buy your frozen turkey and put it in the freezer. If buying a whole turkey, plan on one pound per person. If you're buying just the bone-in breast, plan on 3/4 pound per person.
- Order or pick up beverages. Keep in mind that a bottle of wine contains about five glasses and always have non-alcoholic drink choices on hand. You can also delegate this job to your non-cooking guests.
- Shop for non-perishable goods. Hit the grocery store for flour, sugar, brown sugar, corn syrup, canned pumpkin, packaged stuffing and cornbread mixes, rice, and frozen cranberries before the crowds descend.
One Week Ahead:
- Take a second trip to the grocery store. Shop for hardier vegetables like butternut squash, carrots, potatoes, parsnips and turnips. You should also buy heavy cream now; it's hard to find right before Thanksgiving.
- Prepare linens and serving dishes. If necessary, wash and iron linen or polish silver. Dig out your turkey roaster and platter and any serving dishes hidden away in closets or high shelves.
Three days ahead:
- Defrost the turkey. If you have a frozen turkey, clear a space in your fridge and put the bird in now to defrost.
- Thoroughly clean your house. Give your home a once-over, or put non-cooking household members in charge.
- Test-drive the table arrangement. If you're having a lot of guests, you may want to set up the table(s) and make sure you have enough space and chairs.
Two days ahead:
- Prepare baked goods. Pumpkin pies, pumpkin cheesecake, rolls, breads and cornbread for stuffing can all be made ahead of time. Refrigerate pies; you can always warm things up again before serving. Apple or pecan pies don't do well in advance, though; the crust doesn't stay flaky and crisp.
- Assemble casseroles. Casseroles, like sweet potato or green bean, can be stored uncooked in the fridge and baked on Thanksgiving.
- Consider what else you can make ahead of time. To make Thanksgiving Day as stress-free as possible, make things that can sit for two days in the fridge, like soups and cranberry sauce.
One day ahead:
- Set the scene. Put out table settings and centerpieces ahead of time -- you'll need time on Thanksgiving Day to focus on the food. Set up a coat rack with extra hangers.
- Do any remaining baking. Bake anything left on your list, including apple or pecan pies.
- Buy your salad greens and perishable vegetables. Wash lettuce leaves now, dry well, and store by packing them in paper towels in a plastic bag in the refrigerator.
- Pick up your fresh turkey. If you ordered a fresh turkey, go get it from the butcher or grocery store.
- Calculate your cooking time and cooking order for Thanksgiving Day. A turkey needs to cook for about 15 minutes per pound. Figure out what can't be cooked along with the turkey in the oven, either in terms of temperature or space. Plan to cook those things before or after the turkey is done, or on the stovetop while it's cooking; better still, make them today.
Thanksgiving Day:
Turkey Day is finally here! Use the cooking schedule you devised, or prepare foods in this order:
- Prepare stuffing. If you're stuffing the turkey, do the preliminary cooking first-thing on Thanksgiving Day, or prepare the dressing to cook on the side.
- Prepare vegetables for cooking. Clean, peel and chop, then over the ready-to-go vegetables and put them in the refrigerator.
- Cook and mash potatoes. Boil potatoes and mash them; they can be reheated just before serving.
- Put the turkey in the oven. Stuff the turkey and get it in the oven according to the schedule you calculated yesterday.
- Begin cooking vegetables. Just before the turkey is done, begin cooking fresh vegetables.
- Remove turkey from the oven. Cover the turkey with a foil tent to keep it moist.
- Bake oven-ready items. Add prepared casseroles, stuffing, soups, mashed potatoes or rolls to the oven to warm.
- Cook frozen vegetables. As the turkey rests, cook frozen vegetables.
- Make the gravy. Gravy should be served piping hot, so make it just before dinner is served.
- Put all the food on the table or buffet. Don't hesitate to press guests into service to put food in bowls, open wine bottles, fill glasses and dish up the cranberry sauce.
- Get a plate and eat! Don't spend the meal running back and forth to the kitchen and end up missing out on the Thanksgiving feast you've created.
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