17 Thanksgiving Hacks I Recommend Every Single Year

Thanksgiving is a big deal to me. Every year, towards the end of October—for almost six years now—my thoughts turn to turkey and all its accompanying sides. You’d think I’d be tired of it, but I’m not.

I’ve given a lot of Thanksgiving advice—some helpful, some silly, and some boring—and listening to it will likely help make your Turkey Day a little more enjoyable and a lot less stressful. Here’s some of my favorite advice I’ve doled out over the years.

Have you ever tried to spatchcock a turkey with a dull pair of shears? Have you ever tried to chop 12 onions with a dull blade? Both of these things are recipes for disaster and possible trips to the emergency room. If you think your knives are “fine” but can’t remember the last time they were sharpened or honed, just get them professionally sharpened now. (Then learn how to maintain the blade with a honing steel.)

If you need new knives, poultry shears, a big ol’ cutting board for turkey, or any matter of baking equipment, get thee to the restaurant supply store for reasonably-priced, workman-like tools that are good enough for professionals.

The restaurant supply store is great for knives and cutting boards, but the thrift store is the place to go for pretty serving platters, all manner of cups and flatware, table linens, and pretty serving spoons. Just get there before my stepmom does. She takes all the good stuff.

A commenter once compiled a list of every time I mentioned soup containers as the best leftover storage system. It was three items long, but I fear it’s time to add a fourth, because I will never stop talking about how great soup containers are. They’re stackable, the lids can be interchanged between sizes, and they’re reusable but cheap enough that you don’t care about packing them full of Thanksgiving leftovers and sending them home with your guests.

Whether you drink capital-C Champagne or bargain TJ’s bubbles, sparkling wine is the only wine you need at the Thanksgiving table. It’s festive, yes, but its acidic, bright, effervescent nature makes it the perfect foil for salty, fatty food, which is exactly what a good Thanksgiving menu is comprised of.

As I’ve mentioned before, I like drinking Diet Coke with turkey and dressing for the same reason I like drinking Champagne with turkey and dressing:

Diet Coke’s refreshing, almost aggressive tartness comes from two of my favorite acids—phosphoric and citric—and they are the heroes that make it so perfect for washing away rich savory flavors and preparing your mouth for the next bite. (They are also why Diet Coke is so good with cheeseburgers.)

I’m not talking fancy, homemade onion dip. I’m talking about the semi-gelatinous beige goop that comes in a jar, complete with little onion bits and MSG. But, as I explained a few years ago, all those emulsifiers create a wonderful bite of mash:

Just like my mayo mashed potatoes before them, the emulsified oil product helps marry the hydrophilic with the hydrophobic, creating a velvety, creamy bowl of spuds with a surprisingly subtle oniony flavor and just enough umami.

Burnt onions—not caramelized—are the key to a deeper, roastier, tastier gravy:

The onion thickens the gravy slightly, which is nice if you didn’t make quite enough roux, but it also just tastes really, really good. They have a deep, roasted, umami-packed flavor. To me, it’s a flavor that has a developed quality to it. Burnt onion doesn’t taste “thrown together”; it communicates “this thing was cooked for a while, and it was cooked with love and attention.”

There’s something special about having one’s own head of roasted garlic to distribute as you see fit. It’s an indulgent experience—you can mash them into potatoes or smear them on rolls—and one that each of your guests should have.

Thanksgiving dinner is notoriously high in carbs and delicious fats, which is why Samin Nosrat recommends adding acid wherever you can:

In almost every dish, there’s a way to do it if you just start looking through the lens of “what is an acid?” and try to incorporate one of those [ingredients]. So [for] mashed potatoes, instead of just butter and cream, use sour cream or creme fraiche. In gravy—it has wine to begin with when you deglaze the pan—maybe finish it with wine too so there’s a little bit of fresh acidity. I always like to make fried sage salsa verde, because sage is such a great Thanksgiving taste, and if you fry it, it gets really crisp. I make a big salsa verde with shallots and red wine vinegar and parsley and oil, and then I crumble in the sage at the end, and it’s really nice on everything. I think in stuffing, which could definitely use some tang, starting with sourdough bread is one way. Then I like to put dried fruit in there—like prunes. I’ll soak the prunes in white wine, so they’re like little little acid bombs. I also think it’s really important to have at least one really acidic salad.

Speaking of acid, this turkey brine incorporates some by way of buttermilk, which tenderizes the meat while the extra proteins promote browning.

This is the turkey recipe that made me love turkey. Not only is it super juicy and flavorful, it’s cooked outside on a simple charcoal grill, freeing up the oven for other things, like casseroles.

Turkeys stay hot for a long time, so there’s no reason to tent your bird with foil. In fact, doing so can actually steam the skin, softening it:

A turkey, fresh from the oven or grill or fryer, is very hot. It’s steaming hot. Wrapping your hot bird in foil after it’s done cooking doesn’t just trap heat, it traps steam, and steam is the enemy of crispy skin. Steam softens the skin, making it soggy and gummy and undoing all of your hard work.

Sweet potatoes, heavy cream, and salt are all you need to make this incredibly decadent, blistered dish of orange beauty.

Most condiments are quite resilient and can stand a few hours, or even a day, outside of the fridge if you keep them in a cooler. Making this move frees up door space, which may not seem like much, but every bit counts on Thanksgiving.

Flowers and wine are nice, but the best guests bring practical goods, like dish towels, freezer bags or soup containers for leftovers, and serving spoons (which there are never enough of).

I made my case regarding this issue a few years ago, but just to re-cap, sweet potato pie kicks pumpkin’s shiny orange butt:

Pumpkin is, itself, bland. Take a piece of roasted sweet potato and a piece of roasted pumpkin. Eat each one. Which one tastes better? Right, it’s the sweet potato, which is sweet and delicious. Pumpkin, on the other hand, taste like a less-good butternut squash. Pumpkin pie gets all of its deliciousness from the spices involved—which is why we guzzle Pumpkin Spice Lattes and not Pumpkin Lattes—while the sweet potato is simply enhanced by them. If you’re a person who shuns canned products, roasting and processing your own sweet potatoes is going to be a lot easier than dealing with fresh pumpkin. Also, the texture of a sweet potato pie is more velvety, with a less jiggly mouthfeel, which I consider an advantage.