How to Plan and Organize Thanksgiving Dinner

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. It’s a day for the family to enjoy time together cooking a great meal, watching the parade, watching football, or just sharing time. But hosting the dinner can get a bit overwhelming regardless if it is a small or a large number of guests that you will be hosting, and it can be especially overwhelming if it is your first time hosting Thanksgiving dinner.

I am aware of this fact since I have been hosting Thanksgiving since the first year I got married (1994) and for a few of those years I had 20 plus guests for dinner and half of those guests even spent the weekend with us. So in addition to hosting the main event, I’ve also had to come up with a few meals to feed the guests for the length of their stay. Thank god for takeout! Through the years I have streamed line my way of planning, organizing and cooking and for the big day. So that I do not spend all of Thanksgiving day in the kitchen. With a bit of planning, you will gain the time back on Thanksgiving to enjoy your day and your family.

Here is my execution plan.

Of course, by this time you should have figured out who is coming for dinner. How many guests are coming and what type of dinner you will have, are you doing all the cooking or will your guest each bring something for the meal, or maybe you will have the meal catered. Even if you have the meal catered, you will still have to take some steps to heat up your meal and set it up.

Plan the meal

Keep it simple. If you are having the meal catered you should place your order as soon as possible or if you have decided to have a potluck meal then this is the time to assign a dish to your guests. I do not recommend that you just say “bring a side dish,” be specific or you might end up with three sweet potato casseroles. This is what I do when I have a large number of guests, especially on Thanksgiving. Most people want to cook something to share, after all, its one of the basis of this holiday? By the way, just cause you are hosting doesn’t mean you have to make the turkey.

Shopping

I do the main shopping on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, and I do it early, I am usually at the market by 8:30 am. I get everything I need on this day, this way I beat the large frenzy at the market. I get a fresh turkey, I believe it is tastier and easier to handle than a turkey that has been frozen. If you chose to buy a frozen turkey, you will have plenty of time to defrost it by getting it on Sunday. After the shopping is done, I am ready to make progress during the week by doing a little bit each day, which gives me back the time that I would be spending in the kitchen on Thanksgiving day.

Schedule

Sunday night I take 20 minutes to pick out the serving platters that will be used for each dish and place them on the dining table.

Monday night after I finish dinner I make the marinade for the turkey ( I make a Cuban marinade turkey) the marinade is better when it is made ahead of time.

Tuesday night is for the vegetables and the dressing. If you are wondering, the dressing is the same as stuffing, but it is cooked in a dish, not in the bird. Everything gets washed, chopped and prepped, and all ingredients for each dish is placed in large zip-lock bags (like a meal kit) and stored in the fridge.

Wednesday is the final stretch before the big event. I order take for dinner and that frees up my evening for some cooking for Thursday. If I am going to bake anything I do it in the morning (the oven will be busy tomorrow). If it’s a pie, I prep it and park it in the fridge, I later bake it while everyone is eating Thanksgiving dinner. I make all the side dishes, and once they are done, they go into the fridge. Then I prep the turkey, I use an XL zip-lock storage bag and place the turkey in it with the seasoning and the marinade that I made on Monday. I then place the bag in the roasting pan, just in case the bag leaks, and into the fridge, it goes for the night. The last thing that is done on this night is to disinfect the sink and wipe down the kitchen counters. At this point in your evening, I recommend taking a few minutes to figure out how long the turkey is going to need to cook. This way you know at what time to put your turkey into the oven so that it is ready for your mealtime.

Turkey cooking 101

Cooking time for a fresh or fully defrosted turkey (unstuffed) at 350f, it is roughly 15 minutes per pound. So if the turkey is 18 pounds, it will roughly need 4.5 hours to cook, then I add two more hours to that. 1/2 an hour for it to sit out from the fridge and come to room temperature before going into the oven and 1.5 hours for it to rest when it comes out of the oven. So if dinner is at 6 pm, then an 18-pound turkey would need to be out of the fridge by 11 am and in the oven by 12:30 pm. For some more information and easy instructions on defrosting and cooking a turkey here is a great blog post on How to Roast a Turkey the Easiest Way from Epicurious.

Conclusion

Thanksgiving Day you can wake up and enjoy your breakfast and anything that you want by this point everything is pretty much done. At 11 am you start your oven so it can come to temperature and take the turkey out of the fridge and prep it for the oven. At 12:30 pm the star of the day (the turkey) goes into the oven. I usually check on it every hour and baste it if needed. After putting the turkey into the oven, I set the table for dinner. At 4:30 pm I take the turkey out of the oven. While the turkey sits, I place all my side dishes into the oven to warm. By 6 pm all the food is ready, and I can sit to enjoy a wonderful meal with family and friends.