Inexpensive Thanksgiving Side Dish Ideas: For Turkey

Your Thanksgiving meal can become quite expensive, especially if you are cooking for a large number of people. These inexpensive Thanksgiving side dishes are sure to please everyone attending your Thanksgiving feast without putting the pinch on your pocketbook. Just because you are preparing your Thanksgiving side dishes in an inexpensive way, does not mean that you will have to sacrifice on taste!

Seasoned Green Beans

Turn a few cans of simple French style green beans into an elegant inexpensive Thanksgiving side dish by adding ½ cup cubed ham or a couple slices of cooked, crumbled bacon, a small jar of diced pimento and ¼ cup of chopped onion. Simply pour the contents of your cans into a large sauce pan, (I usually discard the juice from 2 cans of my green beans, so that there is not as much liquid) add all ingredients and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes. Place in a beautiful serving dish with a few sprigs of parsley, and watch them disappear!

Not Just Your Ordinary Mashed Potatoes

These are my absolute favorite mashed potatoes! They are a little more complicated to prepare than the seasoned green beans, but well worth the effort. They still fit into the inexpensive Thanksgiving side dishes category, as I am a firm believer in using items that you have on hand, to spice up ordinary dishes to make them a little more festive for the holiday dinner table.

Cook the potatoes as you normally would, with the exception of adding 2 tbs. of garlic powder to the boiling water. You want the garlic to be pretty strong, so that the potatoes will absorb the flavor. The second difference between these mashed potatoes and regular mashed potatoes is instead of using milk during the creaming process, you use sour cream. This adds a nice change of pace. Place them in your favorite serving dish and top with several dollops of sour cream, finely chopped fresh onion, about 3 slices of crisply cooked crumbled bacon then sprinkle over all a generous amount of shredded cheese.

Deviled Eggs With a Twist

Deviled eggs are always a hit at any family get together. To dress them up a little and serve them as one of your inexpensive Thanksgiving side dishes is quite simple. When preparing the yolk for the egg filling, add in a small amount of any or all of the following, pickle relish, diced pimento, finely chopped ham, green bell pepper and/or diced onion. For extra color and zest sprinkle a dash of Cajun seasoning on top of the finished deviled egg.