Thanksgiving turkey alternative ideas

Realness?

At our house, we serve NutLoaf! Wimmin only!

Are you opposed to all poultry or just turkey?

OP- I'm the opposite of you.

I LOVE turkeys that's why I can't eat the beautiful creatures.

Spam, sister.

Spam.

Think about a glazed ham, OP.

Ham, roast chicken, lasagna, or go out for dinner so everyone can pick what they want.

Prime rib.

What foods would you feel particularly grateful for, OP? That’s what to serve. For me, it’s lasagne alla Bolognese to start, and some kind of fish or seafood for the main course. Then for dessert, crème caramel or Martha Stewart’s cranberry tart for dessert. None of the cliched American Thanksgiving Meal for me.

Jambalaya or etouffee! Maybe some stuffed mirlitons.

Who are your guests? Maybe they like turkey. Maybe they'd feel like something was missing from *Thanksgiving* dinner without turkey.

If you're still planning on serving stuffing / dressing, cranberry sauce, etc., you might as well have turkey.

If you plan to do something different, then make *everything* different, but also luxurious or very, very delicious (based on your guests' palates).

Roast beef was once the standard main course. Do that or ham or pheasant or whatever.

grilled fish, roasted potatoes, succotash, cranberry popovers

Prime rib is a good choice. My aunt used to make a big pot roast. R10 must be also New Orleanian to bring up mirliton! I’m not too fond of it but it is good.

If there was an original thanksgiving harvest feast, they might have included shellfish.

How about a big goose?

I always do chicken fingers with country gravy, mashed potatoes with country gravy, and sage stuffing with country gravy. And a side of country gravy.

so, bechamel?

I'd take it all the way to fried spam fingers.

Why don't you just do the entire traditional meal -minus the turkey. Make the stuffing as a casserole. All the tradition with less than half of the fuss and mess. I've been serving a turkey-less Thanksgiving for years and everyone loves it. By the time you load up your plate with all the sides, no one even notices there's no turkey.

My usual spread:

stuffing casserole

asparagus with hollandaise

waldorf salad

corn

mashed potatoes w/mushroom graxy

cranberry sauce with orange and walnuts

fresh rolls

pumpkin pie

pecan pie

chocolate cream pie

I also set out a chess board with olives, nuts, celery, and other nibbles...

Here you go, lazy bones.

Not sure I recommend this, but I have a friend who serves spaghetti whenever it’s her turn to host.

Spaghetti as part of a beautiful Italian meal is great. Why not? I mean, we're not talking a can of Spaghetti-ohs are we? Or overcooked pasta with sauce from a jar?

Peasant is in season. They just released 10,000 of them here in Ohio. You baste them with milk if you’re worried about gaminess.

Glazed ham and prime rib are the most common alternatives, or a beef wellington would be fantastic.

Rack or leg of lamb might work, but many people don't like lamb.

Pork roast is also an option.

Not like lamb???

Pheasant?

Peasants really need to be fattened up a bit before you eat them -otherwise they are dry and chewy.

Serf's uo!

Roasted Cornish Hens. Everyone gets one. Easy-peasy.

How about ortolan?

R20, That is my kind of Thanksgiving dinner! (Even though I'm r30, I don't eat meat.)

For a delicious alternative to turkey, try my special recipe for mouth watering prunes fricassee and frozen water cubes.

I'll only post my recipes if you nasty cunts are nice to me. Otherwise, go to hell, the lot of you.

R2 is that a joke?! A vegetarian lesbian with a CPAP machine??

Try Thanksgiving Oyster Dressing.

Only want a nibble. 🦃

Pot roast

One year we had a duck my uncle shot. It was the best thanksgiving meal ever, but I’ve never been able to replicate it because the ones from the store aren’t as good. This duck was braised and cooked til it fell off the bone and the dressing was put in it towards the end of the process. So rich and tender, it totally upstaged the poor Turkey. Maybe the duck had been eating something delicious? It was from south Louisiana.

Cassoulet.

I love the idea of just serving a bunch of sides. As long as none of them have mushrooms or any kind of seafood in them.

[quote]I hate turkey. What can I serve instead this year?

Yourself, Miss Lonelyheart.

R35! I’ve always wanted to try that, but I can’t cook for shit.

How about a “celebration roast”?

Your roasted head on a stick, Gerg!

Tacos.

Pemmican and roasted maize.

A vegan chorizo polenta bake?

I can’t imagine anyone not noticing there’s no turkey, R20.

R48 “don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining!”

Now let's be real. Nobody, and I mean nobody, looks forward to the turkey.

Thanksgiving is all about the carbs!

R50 Speak for yourself.

Thanksgiving turkey with gravy and stuffing is one of life's greatest delights, OP!

NY Strip or Filet Mignon.

Salmon

Because traditional Thanksgiving sides are so carb heavy you need turkey as a lean protein. If someone invited me to Thanksgiving Dinner and served all the traditional sides but no Turkey I would be wicked pissed. If they served something completely different but let me know in advance it was not going to be a traditional Thanksgiving dinner I might consider going but probably would decline.

Big boned Karens.

Red Snapper became a big thing after Debra Barone upset Thanksgiving with one on “Everybody Loved Raymond “.

“Who needs that turkey when you have my meat?”

I'm a vegetarian. The only meat the people around my table are interested in is under the table -not on it.

After a half century hosting a big, two turkey Thanksgiving dinner every year, my mom pulled the plug on turkeys. Breast meat is dry and tasteless, and the thighs on commercially raised turkeys are tiny. A few years ago, she bought an insane amount of chicken thighs. She deboned, marinated, and roasted them. They were divine.

My aunt (by marriage) was Italian/Hungarian. She served lasagna and baked fish for Thanksgiving.

The few times I have hosted Thanksgiving, I roasted a turkey but also roasted a prime rib. (There was always a ton of turkey white meat left over, but none of the beef, so I cubed the leftover turkey and made a casserole with it, adding broccoli, rice, and cheese. It's very pedestrian, but it tastes good and makes the turkey palatable.)

Since I am basically white trash, I also serve green bean casserole, canned cranberry sauce (with the "ribs" from the can), mashed potatoes, gravy, biscuits, and stuffing. I always make pumpkin, apple, and German chocolate pies. It's a lot of work, but I do it, at most, once a year.

I have friends who serve ham on Thanksgiving, and the lines at the local Honeybaked store are insane the days before Thanksgiving, but for me, ham is an Easter dinner meat. Christmas is always a standing rib roast in my family.

Cornish Game Hens

R51, If you eat the turkey plain, no gravy, I'll yield!

Turkey is always the worst part of a thanksgiving meal.

I love turkey breast meat at Thanksgiving with all the trimmings. What I find tasteless is turkey as lunch meat, however high quality.

I guess sometime in history an ancestor figured out how to roast a moist turkey because I haven't suffered a lifetime of this dry and tasteless bird everyone speaks about. It's about basting and starting with a good FRESH local bird. My family was always the type to patronize butchers, preferably German.

Okay. Here's the secret to cooking a moist turkey. My dad always did it this way and he never failed to produce the goods...

Empty the innards and wash the bird thoroughly. Pat dry. Cover it liberally in cooking oil. Salt it and pepper it generously. The skin should look almost completely black with pepper. Place it on a rack, stuff, and place the rack on a roasting pan with the lid on. Now comes the odd part: put the roasting pan on a barbecue with a cover and cook for 20 minutes per pound. No basting. When the time is up, remove the lid and check for browning. Bring the bird back in the house. Let it rest for at least 20 minutes before you remove the stuffing or do anything else.

I swear to god that this method always produced a perfectly cooked, browned turkey that was positively juicy.

The bigger the turkey the more likely it is to dry out because you have to cook it so long. Go with a 12 lb fresh bird and it will be moist and succulent.

Deep-fry it. Always moist.

Sweetmeats.

[quote]Okay. Here's the secret to cooking a moist turkey....

Don't overcook it! Tah-dah! There's the secret.

I'm not a huge fan of turkey, and I make a duck nearly every Thanksgiving, even if I'm hosting, and making a turkey for other people. (What's not to love about duck - moist, succulent, flavorful)

Beef bourguignon, or this amazing NYT recipe for mushroom bourguignon, which is one of my favorite things to make in the fall and winter, served over mashed potatoes.

You could also do a decadent moussaka, which could be made lighter/vegetarian with lentils instead of lamb or ground beef.

Because the entree is so hearty, lighter sides: sauteed spinach with garlic, spiced roasted carrots or eggplant (depending on what's not in the main), marinated beets, rainbow cauliflower.

I forgot to mention that when I make duck, I use Ina Garten's method, which is to prick the fatty parts of the duck all over with a fork, then simmer it for 45 minutes in chicken broth (weighed down with a plate if necessary to keep it submerged.) Remove it (carefully), let it drain for about 15-20 minutes, then dry off the skin, and put it into a preheated oven at 500 degrees for about 1/2 hour. I'll link the entire recipe below. It is fool-proof and leaves you with a ton of duck fat (on the top of the chicken broth) that can be used in future recipes.

Uncle Tim's stuffed mirlitons, perfect for an alternative holiday table.

I never had dry turkey, when either my mom, dad (he cooked, sometimes), or aunt made it. The only time it was ever dry was once when I cooked it (too long). There was always good gravy made from the drippings, and afterwards turkey soup was very good. Or hash.

Buzzard

Don't speak for me, I love roasted turkey!

Hot turkey sandwiches, turkey hash and soup with the bones and carcass!

Love it all.

R39 That looks delicious.

Possum

Barbacoa

Pussy

Roast Chicken? That's what I do. Turkey gets boring after a day or two. And turkey salad isn't as good as chicken salad. The turkey gravy, though, is always good.

Nothing says American thanksgiving like French and Greek casseroles.

Beef Wellington.

If you want to be more "down home", minced pork barbeque, with Brunswick stew, & hush puppies.

What is "turkey lurkey" - is that like hamburger helper?

Anything you want?

The only good turkey I've ever had at thanksgiving was when an acquaintance invited me to their family meal because I was alone for Thanksgiving (having just moved to the area), and his family made a cajun fried turkey.

IT WAS SO GOOD.

How about pork shoulder and tortillas, salsa, Mexican coleslaw, beer, some nice oysters, octopus, and other good sides as if you were on holiday in Mexico.

My late aunt used to order her turkey from Reading Terminal in downtown Philadelphia. It would come with instructions on how to cook it. It always involved a bottle of white wine. Always delicious.

What does Mexico have to do with Thanksgiving?

I've served roasted capon which is delicious and moist. I prefer a pork loin though with cornbread stuffing, apple sauce, and roasted sweet and white potatoes and green beans.

R91 That sounds good.

it's so fucking depressing, I'm seeing xmas decorations in the stores!

r90, many of the foods we associate with Thanksgiving were domesticated in Mexico and then through trading brought to the tribes in what is now the US. (Including, but not limited to corn, squash, pumpkin, turkeys, every kind of bean, tomatoes, peppers, vanilla, sweet potatoes, and chocolate.) Granted r88's menu didn't include many of these foods, but that's on him.

Mexican cuisine is far more varied that people from the US realize, since we mostly associate it with fast food offerings. But of course their ways of flavoring food were not adopted by the Pilgrim or any other subsequent northern European settlers until their descendants starting eating it 3 centuries later.

R93, I was at Lowe's the other day. First thing a shopper sees is a huge Christmas display.

Good-bye, November!

Ass

Pussy

Cock

Vegetarian Ass

Vegetarian Pussy

Vegetarian Cock

A simple semen based soup

r79=Jethro Bodine

Brunswick stew

R94 Okay, Let me put it another way. What does Mexican cuisine have to do with Thanksgiving?

R99 maybe he is saying everything we think the Native Americans gave us at Thanksgiving, was really from Mexico? Even before NAFTA...

Put a big Stouffers lasagna in the oven, salad and bread. Wine and booze. A pie. Your favorite apps. I like a good hot dip with bread or tortilla chips. You're set.

I also don't care too much for turkey.

R100 He also said:

[quote] How about pork shoulder and tortillas, salsa, Mexican coleslaw, beer, some nice oysters, octopus, and other good sides as if you were on holiday in Mexico.

Leg of lamb!

Sometimes when I read descriptions of meat I want to become a vegetarian. A lamb's leg. A pig's shoulder.

I will never understand for the life of me why anyone would ever eat octopus or squid if there are other options available (staring at R88)

R101 Carbfest!

Spam

If someone served me a Stauffer’s lasagna for Thanksgiving dinner I would probably cry all the way home.

If that’s what you like r101, that’s great but don’t serve that to others, especially on Thanksgiving.

R108, what a drama queen. Jesus.

We have turkey and dressing, and other family members bring side dishes. I always get assigned to make the salad because I can't cook for shit.

Chinese.

HAM!

[quote] I hate turkey. What can I serve instead this year?

Simple. Serve turkey to your guests and don't eat it yourself.

we get it catered from restaurants.

Gin and regrets.

Just announce to your guests that you’ve decided on a change plans and that they are now warmly invited to a Thanksgiving soupluck!

How about a huge baked Salmon Teriyaki, with roasted asparagus with crumbled bleu cheese, and garlic mashed potatoes, or vegetable fried rice. Decadent lemon cheese cake for dessert?

TOFURKEY!

Put a can of pinto beans and a can opener on each charger and tell all your guests, "Have at it."

If it's not too cold where you live, fire up the grill. Steaks, BBQ chicken, ribs, burgers. Fix some sides, like potato salad, baked potatoes, green bean casserole, etc.

But I like turkey. The leftover turkey sandwiches the next few days are the best part of the holiday.