Thanksgiving Dinner ideas for spending more time with your guests

So I am always searching for Thanksgiving dinner recipes and a thanksgiving centerpiece you can make ahead of the big day.

Share your Thanksgiving dinner ideas: By the way, if you have some great ideas for making the work easier why not share them with our readers by filling out the box at the end of this page?

An easy Thanksgiving centerpiece: I love a simple Thanksgiving centerpiece you can put out a few days ahead and enjoy for days after the feast.Decorate your table with a a simple arrangement of gourds like the ones in the picture above and you have set a Thanksgiving centerpiece without stress.

Great Thanksgiving dinner party ideas include recipes so you can make the traditional turkey, gravy, and mashed potatoes a day ahead. You can even get the salad mostly ready.

Here are make ahead Thanksgiving recipes for two of the traditional dishes. I chose them because they both take time and use lots of pots and bowls. If you can make them ahead, you reduce clutter and cleaning up tasks for Thanksgiving Day itself.

More Thanksgiving dinner ideas - Make ahead Thanksgiving turkey
This procedure is for cooking a fresh turkey to be stored in the fridge and served within a day or at most two. If you want to cook the turkey more than a day or two ahead, you should use a recipe for cooking and freezing the turkey. Then you can safely freeze it for up to a month before Thanksgiving.

Safety Tip: Wash your hands with soapy water after handling raw turkey. Put some water in the sink with a little bleach and wash the sink and any utensils you used to handle the turkey.

Aroma Tip: This is one of my favorite Thanksgiving dinner ideas.

When you buy your fresh turkey to roast ahead of the big day, buy an extra package of wings and legs as well, On the day of your dinner, pop these into a roasting pan and roast them for about two hours before dinner. This way your guests can enjoy the wonderful aroma of turkey even though the big bird is already cooked.

Buy a meat thermometer at the supermarket – the kind you just plunge into the turkey.

Buy an unstuffed fresh (not frozen) turkey that will provide about one pound per guest.

Figure roughly about 25 minutes per pound for roasting, but rely on the meat thermometer for the final decision about whether the turkey is cooked.

Roast the turkey in your usual way, or if you don’t have a usual way just follow the really simple directions below.

Simple Turkey Roasting Turkey Steps
1. Take the turkey out of the fridge a few minutes before you are ready to put it in the oven.

2. Remove and discard anything in the front cavity and the back cavity (such as neck bone and bags of innards

3. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

4. Rinse the turkey and pat dry.

5. Place on a rack in a roasting pan big enough for air to circulate around the sides of the bird

6. Insert the meat thermometer in the meat of the inner thigh, without touching any bones. Roast until the meat thermometer reads 170 F or 77C. After about two thirds of the way through the roasting, you can loosely cover the breast and wings with a tent of foil to make sure they don’t dry out.

7. When done, take the turkey out of the oven and let it sit for about 20 minutes before carving.

8. You can use the time the turkey is sitting to make gravy.

Slice and save directions

1. Carve the turkey and lay the slices in a shallow pan, overlapping each other slightly. Don’t stack the turkey pieces. If there are too many slices to overlap just slightly in one pan, use a second pan.

2. Before storing in the fridge, barely cover the slices with chicken or turkey stock.

3. Cover the containers with plastic wrap.

4. Wings and legs can be sliced or left whole and saved in another container.

5. Store in fridge for no more than 2 days.

Thanksgiving dinner recipe for make-ahead mashed potatoes
Make your cooking list even simpler by preparing mashed potatoes the day ahead as well.

For 8 people: (increase or decrease according to the size of your crowd)

About 8 medium sized potatoes
½ cup of butter
About 8 ounces of cream cheese
About 6 ounces of sour cream

Cook the potatoes as usual and drain. Mash by hand or with a hand-held mixer until the mixture is almost smooth. Mix in the butter and cream cheese until light and fluffy, then mix in the sour cream.

Store covered in the fridge. For complete simplicity, store in an oven-safe pan so you don’t need to move them to another container when you take them out of the fridge.

Get the salad ready in advance too
If you are planning to serve a salad, you can wash all the ingredients, put them in the bowl you plan to use, and store them covered in the fridge the day before. You can make your favorite dressing ahead of time too.

Still more Thanksgiving dinner ideas:Now let's add one more to our list of Thanksgiving dinner ideas: how to re-heat and serve the turkey:

Serving up the turkey and gravy on Thanksgiving day
1. Plan for about a half hour of reheating time once the oven is preheated to 325 F.

2. A few minutes before you plan to start reheating your turkey slices, remove the turkey from the fridge and remove the plastic wrap. Let it stand while the oven preheats.

3. Preheat the oven to about 325 F degrees

4. Cover turkey and stock liquid with foil and reheat in an oven proof dish until the liquid is simmering and the meat has reached a temperature of 165 F degrees. If the oven is hotter for another dish, keep an eye on the turkey as it will reach 165 F a little more quickly.

5. Transfer the meat slices to your platter and serve.

6. Gravy should be brought to a rolling boil

Safety Tip: Don’t leave leftovers sitting on the table for more than an hour. Get them promptly into the fridge.

Serving up the potatoes and salad on Thanksgiving Day
To serve, remove mashed potatoes from the fridge. Let them stand for a few minutes, then heat them covered at 350 degrees for about half an hour.

To finish your salad, all you need to do at dinner time is add your dressing and toss. If you’re using tomatoes in the salad, add them at the last minute too.

One of the blessings we remember at Thanksgiving is having family and friends to share our lives with. Is this your year to join them in the living room instead of spending too much time in the kitchen? It could be if you use these Thanksgiving dinner ideas, tips and Thanksgiving dinner recipes.

And that's it - a simple list of Thanksgiving dinner ideas that let you spend time in the living room with family and friends instead of alone in the kitchen.