If there’s someday of the yr to create a show-stopping desk, it’s Thanksgiving. Ideally, the meal itself ought to stir cozy meals reminiscences like apple pie, heat mashed potatoes with melty butter, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and extra. However have you ever ever been to a Thanksgiving potluck and your meals hasn’t traveled effectively? It may be disheartening to make a dish that appears beautiful at dwelling, just for it to look not so nice as soon as it’s on the desk at your vacation spot. Deciding on the dish can encourage some psychological gymnastics within the first place: what travels effectively, appears stunning, and tastes simply nearly as good hours later?
15 Thanksgiving Potluck Concepts That Are 100% Foolproof
Should you’re like me, you need your meals to look nearly as good because it tastes, particularly on Thanksgiving. In an effort to take some stress off your in all probability very busy plate, I’ve rounded up just a few Thanksgiving potluck concepts that journey effectively, look stunning, and are complete crowd pleasers. Scroll on for the recipes, and ahead this as a PSA to all your folks!
The Greatest Thanksgiving Facet Dishes
Most of the time, the host could have the chicken dealt with. A complete turkey isn’t precisely travel-friendly anyway. However the sides? Now we’re speaking. The next facet dishes are the final word crowd pleasers that can add much-needed coloration and vibrancy to the desk. Additionally, full transparency: the edges are my favourite half!
Pesto Parmesan Potatoes
5-ingredient, flavor-packed potatoes? Music to my ears. Choose a wide range of small potatoes (Yukon, fingerling, and child potatoes) and toss them in pesto, fruity olive oil, and an enormous pinch of salt and pepper. Add roasted garlic and parmesan for good measure. Additionally, I really like a great do-it-yourself pesto, however within the phrases of Ina Garten, “store-bought is ok.”
Journey tip: These potatoes are greatest served heat, so examine in along with your host concerning the oven. Allow them to know they’ll should be reheated should you’re not consuming immediately! I promise it’s value it—heat, crispy potatoes at all times are.
Fall Harvest Salad
I really like a easy, swoon-worthy salad. Entertaining extraordinaire Sophie Collins created this recipe that provides contemporary taste and beautiful coloration to all your fall gatherings. Hardy greens and crunchy seeds mix to create a salad that proves: it’s not simply concerning the vitamins—salads might be scrumptious, too.
Journey tip: Pack up your brie and sliced pears. When it’s time to serve, slice the wheel of brie in half, then tear up and toss in bite-sized items, adopted by the pears. You’ll be so glad you probably did.
Butternut squash could be a crowd-favorite (and I actually adore it, too), however for me, acorn squash reigns victorious. On this recipe, half moons are tossed with olive oil, brown sugar, rosemary, and pink pepper flakes and roasted till they’re golden and tender. Additionally, for the file, brown butter makes all the pieces higher.
Journey tip: Garnish your squash with sage leaves! A garnish actually takes a dish to the subsequent stage so far as presentation, and also you wish to pull out all of the stops for Thanksgiving.
Easy Roasted Greens
This recipe comes courtesy of our resident wellness knowledgeable, Edie Horstman. Not solely is that this dish stuffed with nutrient-packed goodness (a serious win for any Thanksgiving desk), nevertheless it’s additionally crammed to the brim with taste. Wild rice lends a pleasant chew to the bottom whereas a rainbow of heirloom carrots brings slightly much-needed coloration to the desk. The crumbled goat cheese over high? *Chef’s kiss*
Journey tip: The true show-stopper of this vacation facet is the tahini sauce. Pack it up in a small container and drizzle it on, together with the goat cheese and pepitas, when you plate at your host’s dwelling.
Cauliflower Tabbouleh
To your gluten-free buddies, this salad manages to be concurrently gentle and hearty. It harnesses all the colour and taste of the vacation season and is the right accompaniment to any festive major dish. In different phrases, it’s precisely what you might want to carry to each potluck this season.
Journey tip: Make this in a lovely serving bowl and canopy it with plastic wrap when it’s time to go away. It is going to journey simply advantageous—simply put it within the fridge when you arrive at your vacation spot. And ensure you’ve got further pomegranate seeds and pistachios for garnish!
Vacation Jewels Chopped Kale Salad
Assume you’re not a kale salad fan? Assume once more. Whenever you add pear slices, crumbled gorgonzola, pomegranate, and a mustard-shallot French dressing, it’ll go from bland to one of the best factor you’ve ever eaten. It’s excellent for Thanksgiving—and excellent news: should you go dwelling with leftovers, it’s scrumptious for lunch the subsequent day.
Journey tip: Add your cheese, nuts, and dressing only a few minutes earlier than the meal is served. Candied walnuts are even higher than precise sweet should you ask me, but when it’s intimidating to make them your self, you should buy them on the grocery retailer.
Apple Walnut Salad
This salad is an ode to all of our favourite fall flavors. It makes a superb case for why we must be consuming apples by the bushel. It’s fruity, peppery, crunchy, and salty, with a mixture of elements that mix for an ideal stability of taste and coloration. Plus, it’s simply the refreshing chew you’ll want once you’re midway via your annual turkey consumption quota. Who doesn’t love a burst of coloration amidst an array of beige-colored meals?
Journey Tip: Wait so as to add goat cheese, walnuts, and the dressing till it’s nearly time to eat. Including them too quickly will make your salad soggy!
Salt & Vinegar Pan-Roasted Potatoes
Let me introduce you to essentially the most crave-worthy spuds round. Simply 5 easy elements and 40 minutes of mixed prep and cook dinner time, and also you’ll have these delights able to go. (Bonus: They’re simple to switch and even simpler to reheat.) You may simply rename them crack potatoes…
Journey tip: 1 / 4-cup drizzle of apple cider vinegar sends the basic salt and vinegar taste dwelling—simply do it proper earlier than serving! Sprinkle some flaky salt and chopped chives to make it much more attractive.
The Greatest Thanksgiving Desserts
OK, I do know I mentioned facet dishes had been my favourite a part of Thanksgiving, however I would change my thoughts and swap for dessert. I really like dessert and can at all times supply to bake as a substitute of cook dinner. Thanksgiving potluck concepts wouldn’t be full with out one thing candy! The next dessert recipes are in fact scrumptious, however are additionally stunning and very best for touring.
Buttermilk Pie
That is Camille’s mom’s recipe, so that you already understand it’s going to be good. Buttermilk pie is a southern staple that—as Camille agrees—undoubtedly doesn’t get the eye it deserves. It boasts a creamy, custard-like filling that’s gentle, ethereal, and slightly tangy due to the buttermilk. And with a tablespoon of vanilla combined in, it’s fantastically, splendidly candy.
Journey tip: Similar to cake carriers—you possibly can put money into pie carriers as effectively! It may also be a enjoyable DIY undertaking should you’re up for slightly stitching!
Spiced Candy Potato Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting
Throughout a season when it’s all about pumpkin, it’s a welcome transfer to throw a candy potato dessert into the combination. This cake is greater than deserving of its spot in your Thanksgiving buffet. It’s additionally made gluten-free, so everybody can get pleasure from a slice. Mixing the candy potato, a neutral-tasting oil, and eggs makes for a moist crumb, and pairing almond flour with sorghum flour retains each forkful gentle and laced with cinnamon-ginger goodness.
Journey tip: If the highest of your journey container squishes the cream cheese frosting, don’t freak out. You may slather it again on with a butter knife as soon as it’s time to serve. That is additionally the time to high it with candied ginger!
Chewy Pumpkin Spice Cookies
Should you’re headed to a extra informal Thanksgiving potluck, these pumpkin spice cookies are required. The cinnamon glaze could seem optionally available, however belief me—it’s not. They completely seize the candy and spicy deliciousness of the season, and should you want a cookie that leans on the chewier facet, then these are precisely what you’re craving.
Journey tip: Cookies could be essentially the most transportable dessert of all time, and should you’re feeling further, carry them in a cake dome. They’ll really feel much more particular and alluring in your Thanksgiving dessert desk—like a bakery show!
Pumpkin Snack Cake
Snack desserts, by our definition, are informal, comforting confections that don’t require an excessive amount of thought or effort in your half. That being mentioned, they’re nonetheless infused with love and care and must be eaten with pleasure. This pumpkin model advantages from a espresso cake-like crumble and a moist, spice-laced crumb. All that’s to say, it’s completely acceptable to get pleasure from your leftovers for breakfast the subsequent morning.
Journey tip: Make certain your cake is cooled utterly earlier than packing it away to journey. Should you don’t have a cake service, line a Tupperware container with parchment as a substitute.
Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie Bars
I’m all for taking a basic, crowd-favorite recipe and switching issues up—and these pecan pie bars do precisely that. Whereas it’s onerous to enhance upon the unique, including chocolate and bourbon to the combination makes it occur. The result’s a bar that’s thick, chewy, nutty, and precisely what you need once you assume you possibly can’t eat something extra.
Journey tip: Bars are notoriously wonderful vacationers, so don’t be afraid to toss them in a storage container for the drive. However when it’s time for dessert, take into account serving them on a big, picket slicing board. It’s easy—however beautiful.
Wholesome Pumpkin Bread
Simply because the recipe consists of “wholesome” within the title doesn’t imply that this pumpkin bread isn’t full-on dessert-worthy. Bonus: the elements that make it more healthy are the identical parts that lend tons of taste and moist texture to every chew. Applesauce, Greek yogurt, coconut oil, and maple syrup naturally sweeten your bread whereas making clear that you simply’re nonetheless indulging. May this be the right Thanksgiving potluck dessert? You determine.
Journey tip: Spend money on a cake service! This makes packing up your cake extremely simple, and so they even make ones particularly for bundt desserts.
Dairy- and Gluten-Free Pumpkin Pie
Pumpkin pie’s a basic—and it’s a vacation dessert that everybody ought to get to get pleasure from. That’s why we tailored our favourite recipe so our gluten-free buddies can take part, too. And don’t fear, these fluted edges are wayyy simpler to create than they appear. Get our step-by-step suggestions within the submit.
Journey tip: Pies usually journey fairly effectively, simply wait so as to add your cashew whipped cream till serving time!
This submit was final up to date on November 9, 2025, to incorporate new insights.
