Thanksgiving Menu by Dietary Restriction

The strategy: start from the sides

Most Thanksgiving menu planning starts with the turkey and moves outward. I recommend the opposite: start by auditing the side dishes. At a traditional Thanksgiving, the sides constitute about seventy percent of the plate for vegetarian guests. If every side is vegetarian, you are ninety percent of the way to feeding a mixed table.

The classic sides — mashed potato, roasted sweet potato, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, stuffing — are all vegetarian or easily made so. The problem is that most of them use butter or cream, so they fail for dairy-free and vegan guests, and the stuffing typically contains bread, which fails for gluten-free guests.

Making sides work for everyone

Mashed potato: use good olive oil instead of butter and warm plant milk (oat milk is the best substitute) for a version that is vegan and dairy-free without tasting compensatory. The texture is different — slightly less silky — but the flavour with good olive oil is arguably better.

Stuffing: the gluten-free problem here is solvable with good GF bread (I use Against the Grain or Schar rolls, toasted three days ahead and left to dry out). The key is using the same amount of broth as you would with regular bread; GF bread absorbs it slightly differently but the result is excellent.

Green bean casserole: the classic recipe uses cream of mushroom soup, which contains gluten. Make a quick béchamel from GF flour and substitute mushroom stock for a version that is GF and (with oil instead of butter) dairy-free. The crispy onions on top are a problem — they are almost never GF. Use toasted almond flakes for the vegan-and-GF table, or provide them separately.

The vegetarian centrepiece question

Telling a vegetarian guest that "there are plenty of sides" is the same as telling them there is no main course. A proper vegetarian Thanksgiving needs a centrepiece that holds the centre of the plate.

I have cooked three versions that work well at a traditional table without reading as a protest dish: 1. A Delicata squash roasted with harissa, pomegranate seeds, and herbs — visually stunning, requires very little skill, and roasts in the bottom oven while the turkey rests 2. A mushroom and lentil Wellington — substantial, impressive, but requires advance preparation (can be assembled two days ahead and baked fresh) 3. A layered root vegetable tian with Gruyère (not vegan, but vegetarian and visually extraordinary) — needs a 2-inch hotel pan and about ninety minutes in the oven

All three work for gluten-free guests. The Wellington needs GF puff pastry, which exists but is expensive.