4 Fun and Easy Thanksgiving Meals

Not everyone has the time or desire to make a full Thanksgiving feast. Maybe you want to do something different this year, or maybe you find yourself spending more time cooking than enjoying your Thanksgiving. You can use traditional time savers such as dish delegation and premade dishes, or make new traditions with these fun Thanksgiving meals. I've kept these suggestions loose so you can get creative and infuse them with your family's flavor.

Thanksgiving Pizza Party

The difference between a regular pizza and a Thanksgiving pizza is all in the sauce and toppings. While you can offer a pizza made with regular tomato sauce, why not make it more festive by spreading on gravy or cranberry sauce instead? A thin layer of mashed potatoes or stuffing can stand in for cheese. Make side dish pizzas spread with mushroom gravy or cream of mushroom soup topped with cheese, green beans, mushrooms, and onions. Try a cookie dough pizza spread with spiced sweet potatoes and topped with marshmallows.

Your pizza party can be extremely convenient or complex. You can buy instant versions of everything, including precooked turkey and pizza crusts, or make it all from scratch. Make pizzas in advance for large parties; at Thanksgiving everyone's food should be ready at the same time, and with one oven that will be a problem. For smaller parties, or parties with access to multiple ovens, lay crusts, sauces, and toppings out on a table or countertop so guests can assemble their own pizzas for baking.

Salad and Sandwich Bar

Thanks to leftovers, there are a wealth of turkey sandwich recipes and suggestions available online. For these sandwiches, you can precook a turkey or turkey breasts the night before or buy sliced turkey from a deli. Since you'll already be cutting up lettuce, tomatoes, and onions for the sandwiches, chop extra while you're at it for use in the salad bar. Buy a few different kinds of bread at your local bakery and get them to slice it before you leave. Put the toaster someplace easily accessed and lay out some sauces, dressings, and seasonings. You can buy premade croutons for the salad, or make your own by cubing and toasting some of the sandwich bread in a 200 degree oven until dry.

Thanksgiving Burrito and Wrap Buffet

As with the sandwiches, the turkey for these can be roasted in advance or you can use deli cuts. I've included a simple burrito folding diagram which you can use for a neater presentation. For wraps, fold both ends in before moving on to the third picture. Include cooked beans, rice, cheese, vegetables, and sauces for these.

Thanksgiving Kebabs

Turkey cooks a lot faster when it's cut into cubes. Brine the turkey for at least six hours and soak as many bamboo skewers as you think you'll need in water. Once your turkey is brined, you can either skewer the meat and veggies yourself or let your guest build their own kebabs. Consider making a barbeque cranberry glaze to brush over the kebabs from equal parts barbeque sauce and cranberry sauce. If you're not comfortable using a grill, you can cook these in the oven or recruit some family members to grill them for you. Follow this up with a marshmallow roast and sweet potato pie.

Beware; not everyone will want to do work, even fun work, for their Thanksgiving dinner, so be prepared to make a few pizzas or kebabs for the couch potatoes.