This is our feast!
I thought preparing a Thanksgiving meal without grains and white potatoes would pose an insurmountable challenge. What about rolls, stuffing and gravy? As it turns out, with the right recipes and a bit of planning ahead, a grain free Thanksgiving is delicious and simple.
Here’s the menu I created for my family’s Thanksgiving. It fits my limited diet but all of the dishes meet my family’s “regular food” standard. Plus, you can make most of the dishes up to two days ahead – I’ve outlined the game plan below – so you can enjoy more family time and less last-minute food preparation.
This meal makes a no-stress feast for those on restricted diets. It is:
- Grain free
- Optionally dairy free (replace butter with lard or coconut oil in the recipes)
- Refined sugar free
- Nut free – this is a big challenge for grain free meals!
- Egg free (omit the Faux Cornbread Muffins and use the alternate green bean casserole recipe listed below)
Our Make-Ahead Thanksgiving Menu
- Roasted Turkey – use your favorite recipe
- My recipe for (starch-free) Creamy Grain Free Gravy, double the recipe. You will be licking this off your plate. It is THAT good.
- My recipe for Roasted Carrot Mash. This was before I gained some food photography skills, so the picture doesn’t do it justice. But I could honestly eat this stuff for dessert.
- My recipe for Paleo Cornbread Muffins, these are delicious topped with fruit-sweetened apple butter.
- Katie’s recipe for Green Bean Casserole (it contains egg yolks – for an egg free version, use this recipe, but it does contain nuts)
- Mickey’s recipe for Apple-Cranberry Stuffing
- Lisa’s recipe for 3-Ingredient Cranberry Sauce
- Simone’s recipe for Pumpkin Panna Cotta and my recipe for Fennel Ginger Cookies (you can omit the fennel and double the ginger, if desired) OR Mickey’s recipe for a Paleo, egg-free Pumpkin Pie with Gingersnap Crust (which is not GAPS/SCD)
The Make-Ahead Game Plan (see recipes above)
Two days ahead
- Caramelize onions for the gravy, store in an airtight container in the fridge
- Make panna cotta
- Make the cookies and store them in the freezer (yep, the freezer!)
- Make the cranberry sauce
- Make sure you have some homemade chicken stock in the fridge or freezer. Otherwise, put a batch on to cook.
- If you are making the pie instead of the panna cotta, make that today
The day before
- Make the stuffing
- Make the carrot mash
- Make the muffins, store in an airtight container at room temperature.
- Make the green bean casserole
The Big Day
- Roast the turkey
- Use the drippings from the turkey as well as some chicken stock to make the gravy
- Re-heat the carrot mash, the muffins, stuffing, and the green bean casserole in the oven
- Feast!
Is your family preparing a Thanksgiving menu with food restrictions? Are you cooking anything special?
AWESOME!!! What a great idea. I love time saving anything and your post sets my mind at ease about the year’s biggest eating day!
Glad you like the post 🙂
Yay! I was hoping you’d do something Thanksgiving themed. This is my first Thanksgiving on a restricted diet. Thanks! =)
Have a great Thanksgiving!
We don’t have any family in town, so we invite our friends who we feel are like family over. We call it Friendsgiving. This year it will be 100% Paleo. (I am celiac and I have a dear friend that is gluten intolerant.) There will be turkey, ham, butternut sausage stuffing, mashed rutabaga, gravy, sweet potato casserole, “green bean”(asparagus) casserole, rolls, chicken and noodles, pumpkin roll, pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce and carrot cake bars. I am so glad you posted this as I have a lot of food to make!
Mmmm… this all sounds wonderful, especially the butternut sausage stuffing. Have fun cooking and spending time with your friends!
I love the ideas!! Thanks for the post 🙂
You’re so welcome!
This Thanksgiving will be our first ever Thanksgiving with restrictions as my mother and I went Paleo in August–eep! I suspect it may be a little bumpy as we completely re-do our usual menu (my famous southern-style baked mac n cheese shall be no more!), but we’re starting early. I am responsible for cranberry sauce (I’m a former can-stuff lover) and mashed cauliflower. Hope it all turns out good!
I didn’t have time to do all of it, but I tried! The cranberry sauce was delicious, the stuffing was a little watery and the celery was slightly undercooked but that is easily fixed next time, the whipped carrots I mixed with milk and it was awesome. Instead of turkey, because I’m allergic to poultry, I made a roasted ham stuffed with apples and walnuts. I was completely satisfied and felt great!
I’m making the green beans and gravy tonight and some of these desserts throughout the week.
Thank you! You saved my Thanksgiving meal. I had no time to prep and saw your blog literally the day before. Fortunately my groceries were able to be delivered in time 🙂 I was dreading it because everything I wanted to eat was not friendly to my body but your posted recipes worked perfectly and felt wholesome.