Ree Drummond preps nearly every dish ahead to ease stress on Thanksgiving Day.Her holiday menu includes classics like turkey, stuffing and two kinds of pie.Wednesday is the busiest prep day—including casseroles, pies and turkey brining.
For those of us hosting Thanksgiving dinner (or any of the events surrounding it), it can be really difficult to come up with a “game plan.” You have to decide not only what dishes you’re making (or assigning out), but how much of everything to make. Unless you have a multi-oven kitchen with infinite burners, you need to come up with an order of operations for getting everything cooked and keeping it warm. So it’s a good thing Ree Drummond—also known as the Pioneer Woman—just shared a full explainer on YouTube, including what she’s making and a timeline for getting it all done.
The first important step for having a smooth holiday is time management. “You cannot get up on Thanksgiving morning and knock it all out in one day,” Drummond advises. She says her 30-ish years of making Thanksgiving dinners qualify her as an expert, and we’re ready to listen.
Drummond gears up for the big prep by cleaning out her fridge a week before Thanksgiving. It’s a good way to reset, make sure you have room for everything and have a clean space in case guests go poking around. And trust us, you’ll definitely need plenty of room if you’re making Drummond’s menu. Here’s what’s on her lineup:
Next, going off an “exhaustive list,” Drummond heads to the store. While going a week early for some ingredients isn’t realistic if you want things to be fresh for guests, getting everything that will keep is smart because, as Drummond says, “you beat the crowds.” You also ensure that you have everything you need and, if necessary, can go to multiple stores.
Next up, Drummond makes her pie crusts, which she freezes. She makes three pie crusts for the big day, plus one extra (so she can make turkey pot pie with leftovers). The last task Drummond checks off the list a full week before is putting the frozen turkey in the fridge to thaw.
Monday
After a little weekend break, Drummond is right back at it on the Monday of Thanksgiving week. She cleans, chops go-to veggies—especially onions and celery, which go into multiple dishes—and preps and chops Brussels sprouts, butternut squash, broccoli and green beans and stores them in the fridge. She also preps parsley and rosemary, since she uses so much of those fresh herbs for flavor and color on Thanksgiving Day.
She also recommends you prep shredded cheese and chopped nuts, if you’ll need them. For her stuffing or dressing, she also makes a batch of cornbread and cubes French bread and ciabatta in advance.
Tuesday
All of that was just Monday! On Tuesday, she tackles mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce. And it’s not just prepping the potatoes—she makes them entirely in advance. Drummond peels them, cuts them into chunks and cooks them in salted water. When they are fork tender, she drains them and returns them to the pot and, with the stove on low, she mashes them and adds the rest of the ingredients, including lots of butter and half-and-half. She stores them in the fridge and in a serving dish covered in foil.
While the potatoes are cooking, she makes cranberry sauce with fresh cranberries, orange zest and their juice and maple syrup. She cooks it on the stove until jammy, then stows it in the fridge.
Tuesday is also the day Drummond checks all her turkey-roasting equipment to make sure she has everything she needs. She also assigns casserole dishes, using sticky notes to make it clear what side will go into which dish. That way there’s no scrambling for one more pan at the last minute.
Wednesday
While it seems like Drummond has been working hard this whole week, she actually says that Wednesday is the workhorse day. On Thanksgiving eve, she brines her turkey, which needs a whole day submerged before roasting. The other main event for Wednesday is making plenty of pie, including a double-crust apple pie and a dreamy pecan pie.
Then we’re onto the casseroles. Green bean casserole is just fine cooked and left in the fridge to be reheated on Thursday. She adds panko when she reheats on Thanksgiving Day. She also makes a broccoli rice casserole and sweet potato casserole with a streusel topping—no marshmallows here!
Thanksgiving Day
Now, the big day: Thursday. Drummond admits that, with a 20-pound turkey, she has to start early. She rinses off the brine and dries the turkey before setting in the pan to roast for “the first stage,” which takes two and a half hours. Then she rubs it with citrus butter and puts it back in for “phase two.”
While the turkey roasts away, Drummond also prepares her rolls, which are frozen rolls doctored up with fresh herbs and butter. She also uses the giblets from the turkey to whip up some gravy on the stovetop, then tosses her stuffing ingredients into a big bowl to get all mixed together.
Once the turkey is in “phase two,” Drummond says that “now it’s really go time.” She pulls out all the casseroles and brings them to room temperature, then tosses her chopped Brussels sprouts and butternut squash on a sheet pan to get roasting. When the turkey is done—Drummond uses a meat thermometer to check in on the bird—it comes out of the oven and the casseroles start their staggered bakes.
Drummond uses drippings from the turkey to finish her gravy and tags in a family member to carve up the turkey and arrange it on a platter. The last step is to bake the rolls, finish the Brussels sprouts and lay everything out so people can eat.
If you make all of Ree’s Thanksgiving Favorites, you’re in for a lot of work, but the mouth-watering turkey and sides, plus your happy guests, might just make it all worth it. We’re definitely feeling inspired by Ree’s menu—plus Ina Garten’s go-to appetizer and Julia Child’s easy cranberry sauce.
Dining and Cooking