With these three easy strategies and budget-friendly recipes, cooking meals other than the big feast can be stress-free.
When Thanksgiving week rolls around, prepare to feel stuffed, and not just with stuffing.
Your days will be filled with activity, the fridge packed with ingredients for the big meal, the house crammed with guests. And if you're hosting visitors or welcoming children (and grandchildren) home, you also, somehow, have to make breakfast, lunch and dinner. Every day.
The meals other than Thanksgiving dinner may not be your priority, but they can still add conviviality to the buzz and busyness of the week. Cooking costs less than eating out and can be nearly as easy for feeding big groups. Following these tips and recipes will leave you more time with guests and fill everyone with homey, homemade meals.
Stock the Freezer With Dishes That Don't Require Thawing
Freezing fully cooked dishes long before guests arrive is a savvy strategy, but remembering to thaw them overnight? Even the best planners might forget, and that's OK with the right types of meals, like stews, casseroles, meatballs, dumplings, waffles and pancakes.
Recipe: Make-Ahead Breakfast Sandwiches
Designed to keep in the freezer, these breakfast sandwiches are compact and sturdy with toasted English muffins encasing bacon, custardy egg, sharp Cheddar and chives. As guests wake up, they can grab a homemade sandwich to warm up in the microwave for a couple minutes while you sleep in (or brine the turkey). And when they're amazed by how good the sandwiches are, you can reveal the secret if you want: The creamy eggs are baked in bacon fat.
More Meals to Freeze Ahead
Hash Brown Casserole: Reheat uncovered in a 350-degree oven until warmed through and bubbly.
Waffles: Heat in a toaster oven or in a 400-degree oven, flipping halfway through, until crisp and lightly browned.
Chicken Miso Meatballs: Reheat on a sheet pan in a 375-degree oven until warmed through.
Picadillo: Run hot water on the outside of the container until the stew releases, then transfer to a saucepan with an inch of water. Cover and simmer over medium-high until bubbling.
Simmer One-Pot Meals on the Back Burner
Soft, slow-cooked dishes like soups, stews or other braises avoid last-minute frenzy and easily feed a crowd. Put a pot on the stovetop to bubble away while you play card games, pour wine or watch football.
Recipe: Spicy Black Bean Soup
Grab your biggest pot and pick a recipe that's tailored for a crowd, like this velvety black bean soup, which surprises with brightness from salsa verde. The tomatillos in the salsa contain pectin, which, along with starchy bean liquid, quickly thicken the soup.
While the soup is simmering -- for all of 10 minutes -- ready the toppings, then leave the pot over low heat and set a parade of garnishes next to it for guests to assemble their own bowls whenever they want.
More Burbling Pots
Dal Adas (Spicy Red Lentil Tamarind Soup)
Chicken Adobo
Coconut Curry Chickpeas With Pumpkin and Lime
Slow-Cooker Beef and Barley Soup
Use Sheet Pans for Fast, Big Batch Recipes
And if everyone's already really hungry? Quick! Load up a sheet pan and get it into the oven.
Trusty sheet pans offer a large surface to cook a lot of food at once. Instead of juggling multiple skillets or searing in batches on the stovetop, arrange a variety of ingredients on a sheet pan -- or roast a heap of one ingredient -- and let the oven do the rest. (If doubling a sheet-pan dinner, use two pans and roast them at the same time, switching their positions on the racks halfway through.)
Recipe: Hoisin-Peanut Shrimp and Slaw
In this shrimp dish that tastes a lot like Vietnamese fresh spring rolls dipped into peanut sauce, two pounds of shrimp brown in under five minutes, thanks to the broiler (and sheet pan, of course).
The sticky, glazed shrimp then curl across a colorful salad of crunchy vegetables, sprightly herbs, a creamy peanut dressing and crispy onions. (Fried onions belong on more than green bean casserole.)
More Fast Sheet-Pan Meals
Sheet-Pan Pumpkin Pancakes
Barbecue Chicken Pizza
Indian-ish Nachos
Broiled Fish Tacos
These three strategies are all about managing your time so that you have more of it to spend how you want this holiday season -- or anytime, really. The only thing you'll feel stuffed with this Thanksgiving is all the good things you've made to eat.
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