If there’s sooner or later of the 12 months to create a show-stopping desk, it’s Thanksgiving. Ideally, the meal itself ought to stir cozy meals recollections 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 properly? It may be disheartening to make a dish that appears beautiful at residence, 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 properly, appears lovely, and tastes simply nearly as good hours later?
15 Thanksgiving Potluck Concepts That Are 100% Foolproof
If you happen to’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 most likely very busy plate, I’ve rounded up just a few Thanksgiving potluck concepts that journey properly, look lovely, and are whole crowd pleasers. Scroll on for the recipes, and ahead this as a PSA to all your folks!
The Finest Thanksgiving Aspect Dishes
As a rule, the host can have the chook dealt with. An entire turkey isn’t precisely travel-friendly anyway. However the sides? Now we’re speaking. The next facet dishes are the last word crowd pleasers that may add much-needed shade and vibrancy to the desk. Additionally, full transparency: the perimeters 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 like do-it-yourself pesto, however within the phrases of Ina Garten, “store-bought is fine.”
Journey tip: These potatoes are greatest served heat, so examine in together with your host in regards to the oven. Allow them to know they’ll have to be reheated in the event you’re not consuming immediately! I promise it’s value it—heat, crispy potatoes at all times are.
Fall Harvest Salad
I like a easy, swoon-worthy salad. Entertaining extraordinaire Sophie Collins created this recipe that provides recent taste and beautiful shade to your entire fall gatherings. Hardy greens and crunchy seeds mix to create a salad that proves: it’s not simply in regards to the vitamins—salads may 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 blissful you probably did.
Butternut squash could be a crowd-favorite (and I definitely adore it, too), however for me, acorn squash reigns victorious. On this recipe, half moons are tossed with olive oil, brown sugar, rosemary, and crimson pepper flakes and roasted till they’re golden and tender. Additionally, for the document, brown butter makes all the pieces higher.
Journey tip: Garnish your squash with sage leaves! A garnish actually takes a dish to the following 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), but it surely’s additionally stuffed to the brim with taste. Wild rice lends a pleasant chew to the bottom whereas a rainbow of heirloom carrots brings a little bit much-needed shade 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 residence.
Cauliflower Tabbouleh
In your gluten-free pals, this salad manages to be concurrently gentle and hearty. It harnesses all the colour and taste of the vacation season and is the proper accompaniment to any festive essential dish. In different phrases, it’s precisely what it’s worthwhile to convey to each potluck this season.
Journey tip: Make this in a ravishing serving bowl and canopy it with plastic wrap when it’s time to depart. It’s going to journey simply wonderful—simply put it within the fridge when you arrive at your vacation spot. And be certain you’ve gotten further pomegranate seeds and pistachios for garnish!
Vacation Jewels Chopped Kale Salad
Journey tip: Add your cheese, nuts, and dressing just some minutes earlier than the meal is served. Candied walnuts are even higher than precise sweet in the event 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 ought to be consuming apples by the bushel. It’s fruity, peppery, crunchy, and salty, with a mixture of components that mix for an ideal steadiness of taste and shade. Plus, it’s simply the refreshing chew you’ll want once you’re midway by means of your annual turkey consumption quota. Who doesn’t love a burst of shade 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 components and 40 minutes of mixed prep and prepare dinner time, and also you’ll have these delights able to go. (Bonus: They’re straightforward to switch and even simpler to reheat.) You would possibly simply rename them crack potatoes…
Journey tip: 1 / 4-cup drizzle of apple cider vinegar sends the traditional salt and vinegar taste residence—simply do it proper earlier than serving! Sprinkle some flaky salt and chopped chives to make it much more attractive.
The Finest Thanksgiving Desserts
OK, I do know I stated facet dishes have been my favourite a part of Thanksgiving, however I would change my thoughts and swap for dessert. I like dessert and can at all times provide to bake as an alternative of prepare dinner. Thanksgiving potluck concepts wouldn’t be full with out one thing candy! The next dessert recipes are after all scrumptious, however are additionally lovely and excellent 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 a little bit tangy because of the buttermilk. And with a tablespoon of vanilla blended in, it’s fantastically, splendidly candy.
Journey tip: Similar to cake carriers—you possibly can put money into pie carriers as properly! It may also be a enjoyable DIY mission in the event you’re up for a little bit 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’ll be able to 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
If you happen to’re headed to a extra informal Thanksgiving potluck, these pumpkin spice cookies are required. The cinnamon glaze could seem non-compulsory, however belief me—it’s not. They completely seize the candy and spicy deliciousness of the season, and in the event you favor 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 in the event you’re feeling further, convey 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 muffins, by our definition, are informal, comforting confections that don’t require an excessive amount of thought or effort in your half. That being stated, they’re nonetheless infused with love and care and ought to 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 following morning.
Journey tip: Ensure your cake is cooled fully earlier than packing it away to journey. If you happen to don’t have a cake service, line a Tupperware container with parchment as an alternative.
Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie Bars
I’m all for taking a traditional, crowd-favorite recipe and switching issues up—and these pecan pie bars do precisely that. Whereas it’s arduous 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 suppose 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, wood slicing board. It’s easy—however beautiful.
Wholesome Pumpkin Bread
Simply because the recipe consists of “healthy” within the title doesn’t imply that this pumpkin bread isn’t full-on dessert-worthy. Bonus: the components that make it more healthy are the identical elements 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 proper Thanksgiving potluck dessert? You determine.
Journey tip: Put money into a cake service! This makes packing up your cake extremely straightforward, and so they even make ones particularly for bundt muffins.
Dairy- and Gluten-Free Pumpkin Pie
Pumpkin pie’s a traditional—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 pals can take part, too. And don’t fear, these fluted edges are wayyy simpler to create than they appear. Get our step-by-step ideas within the submit.
Journey tip: Pies normally journey fairly properly, 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.
