12 Heart-Healthy Thanksgiving Recipes That Every Guest Will Love (2024)

FAQs

What is the healthiest food to eat on Thanksgiving? ›

White turkey meat, plain vegetables, roasted sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, thin gravy, and pumpkin pie tend to be the best bets because they are lower in fat and calories. However, if you keep your portions small, you can enjoy whatever you like.

Plan Ahead:

Making and freezing a large batch of your favorite recipe ahead of time to have on hand will save you a bunch of time—and cleanup. Keep it simple (you'll have ample opportunity to impress your guests on Thanksgiving) and go for one-pot wonders you can easily reheat, like a hearty stew.

Worst: Sausage Stuffing

It's often made with fatty processed meat, butter or margarine, and refined bread or rice. It's a high-calorie food that packs a load of fat, carbs, and nitrates, which are cancer-causing. If you add dried cranberries, there's a good chance they're sweetened and add sugar to your stuffing.

Mashed potatoes are a traditional Thanksgiving side dish for a reason, and we definitely look forward to serving up this delicious dish every November.

If you are serving a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, you would need turkey with dressing and gravy to start. You would need mash potatoes and green bean casserole. You would need sweet potatoes and cranberry in some form. You would want something for dessert like pumpkin pie and apple ...

Traditional Thanksgiving dinner includes turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes but the First Thanksgiving likely included wildfowl, corn, porridge and venison.

Turkey is the most common main dish of a Thanksgiving dinner, to the point that Thanksgiving is sometimes colloquially called "Turkey Day." Alexander Hamilton proclaimed that "no citizen of the United States should refrain from turkey on Thanksgiving Day", and Benjamin Franklin had high regard for the wild turkey as an ...

Millions of people across the United States will sit down to a traditional Thanksgiving meal, including turkey, potatoes, squash, corn, and cranberries. These foods have become synonymous with Thanksgiving, but how did they end up on tables from Maine to California?

How many dishes should I serve with the turkey? For 4 people, choose 1-2 appetizers and 3 sides. For 8 people, choose 1-3 appetizers and 3 sides. For 16 people, choose 2-3 appetizers and 3 or more sides.

In keeping with the true meaning of the holiday, you could also try a tradition that incorporates the idea of gratitude: Write thank-you notes to loved ones near and far, start a gratitude jar, or give back to your community by volunteering at a soup kitchen.

What is healthier than turkey for Thanksgiving? ›

Try it out on Thanksgiving by substituting tofu for your turkey. Tofu can be cooked in a variety of flavorful ways and comes with a ton of nutritional benefits including a lot of calcium, iron, magnesium, vitamin B, and protein.

Foods like white turkey meat, roasted veggies, salad, sweet potato casseroles, thin gravy, and pumpkin pie are usually the healthiest options on the table, however, eating anything in moderation is always the healthiest thing you can do.