Most Thanksgiving side dish recipes share a flaw. They assume you have space in the oven. On the fourth Thursday in November you probably do not. A turkey has it, at a fixed temperature, for most of the day.
That one constraint makes a useful filter. The sides worth adding are the ones that cook somewhere else.
Green beans do better in a skillet than in a casserole dish anyway: blanched briefly, then finished in butter with shallots and a squeeze of lemon. Red cabbage braised slowly with apple, cider vinegar and a little brown sugar holds on a back burner, and most cooks find it improves if you make it two days ahead.
A raw dish earns its place for the same reason. Shaved fennel, tart apple and celery with a mustard dressing needs no heat at all, and it cuts through everything else on the plate. An uncooked cranberry relish — berries, a whole orange and sugar, pulsed in a food processor and left overnight — takes five minutes and no burner.
Mashed potatoes hold for hours in a slow cooker set on low. And there is one window most cooks forget. A turkey has to rest at least twenty minutes before carving, and a large bird longer. The oven sits empty and hot that entire time, which is room for exactly one dish. Save it for the thing that genuinely needs it.
Rick Good spent ten years in the newspaper business, including with The News & Observer (Raleigh, NC) and The Greenville News (Greenville, SC). He co-wrote, with Melinda Coleman, Rutledge to Riley: Governors of South Carolina, 1776–Present (Published by The Greenville News), and is the author of Mind Games Trivia #1 (Amazon). He has recently spent 15 years creating original trivia content through Sounds Good Mobile Entertainment and continues that with his new company, SGME Software. He edits The Smart Reader’s money, real estate, and business coverage.