Thanksgiving is a major holiday in Canada, and since we’re living here now, we decided to embrace the culture and make a traditional Thanksgiving dinner for the first time.
We knew the turkey was the star of the meal, but we had no idea how to cook it or what sides to prepare. So, we turned to the internet and found plenty of traditional recipes to choose from.
Since it was just the two of us, we kept the menu simple but still ended up with five homemade dishes, plus two store-bought items. We made turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing (or dressing), and green beans. And we picked up some cranberry sauce and a pumpkin pie ready-to-eat.
The decorations were all thanks to Mayara, with a very Canadian theme—small pumpkins and lots of maple leaves.
Thanksgiving Dinner
Let’s go over each of the dishes and the recipes we used.
Our Thanksgiving dinner table
Turkey
The most important dish and also the most challenging one to make. This was our first time doing it so we tried to follow the recipes and adjust a bit to our taste.
The turkey was the most important (and intimidating) dish. Since it was our first time making it, we stuck to the recipes but adjusted them to our taste.
We started the day before by brining the turkey. The brine included apple cider, water, rosemary, garlic, salt, brown sugar, and orange. We followed this recipe and let the turkey sit in the fridge for about 24 hours.
Before cooking it, we stuffed some vegetables and fruits with seasoning, but we ended up not eating that as we had many other options.
On the day of cooking, we stuffed the turkey with vegetables and fruits for extra flavor but didn’t actually eat the stuffing as we had plenty of other food. For the turkey itself, we followed this recipe, preheating the oven to 175°C, pouring chicken broth over the turkey, and wrapping it in aluminum foil. We cooked it for 2 hours and 30 minutes, then removed the foil to let it brown nicely in the oven before letting it rest for 10 minutes.
The result? Surprisingly good for our first attempt! The turkey looked great, and the taste was amazing.
Update from our second Thanksgiving: I used the same turkey recipe this year, but I ran into a timing issue. Even after 3 hours in the oven, the turkey was still a bit undercooked. I’ve since learned that the cooking time should be about 30 minutes per kilogram. Since our turkey was larger this time, it needed closer to 4 hours in the oven to cook through properly. Probably is better to have a meat thermometer next time.
Gravy
This was also our first time making gravy, and we tried out new-to-us spices like thyme and sage. We followed this recipe using butter, flour, turkey drippings, chicken broth, salt, thyme, and sage. It turned out to be one of the easier dishes to make—just follow the steps and you’re done!
Mashed potatoes
Mashed potatoes are pretty straightforward, and this recipe was no different. We used potatoes, butter, salt, milk, and a bit of sour cream, which made a big difference in flavor. We based ours on this recipe.
Stuffing (or dressing)
We took a shortcut with the stuffing by using a pre-made bread base, which saved us some time. We just mixed in the vegetables and baked it in a pie shell, making it a sort of stuffing pie. Our inspiration came from recipe here.
Green beans
This was a simple yet delicious dish—green beans wrapped in bacon and cooked until the bacon was crispy. Quick and easy.
Cranberry source and pumpkin pie
These two were store-bought, so no effort required, but they added the final touches to our Thanksgiving meal.
In the end, I’d say our first Thanksgiving dinner was a success. The flavors were quite different from what we’re used to, but we really enjoyed it.
Happy Thanksgiving!