75 Non-Traditional Thanksgiving Recipes for Any Size Holiday Gathering

This easy pot pie is prepared and baked in a dutch oven and topped with tender, cheesy cheddar thyme biscuits. The creamy filling includes buttery potatoes, mushrooms, chicken or turkey, and whatever kind of frozen vegetables you like.

Bake this dutch oven pot pie in an oven or even over a campfire. This pot pie is also the perfect way to use up leftover turkey or chicken!

This creamy, flavorful vegetarian lasagna is layer upon layer of noodles, velvety parmesan béchamel, rich and savory mushroom ragù, and melted parmesan cheese.

This dish is 100% comfort food, a total crowd pleaser and the perfect addition to a non-traditional Thanksgiving meal.

This simple one-layer cake is flavored with cherry juice, filled with chopped Luxardo cherries and covered in the creamiest cherry frosting.

Lasagna bolognese is rich and saucy casserole made by layering pasta, meaty Bolognese sauce, and creamy parmesan béchamel. While not traditional, this recipe includes the option of adding some additional cheese because, mmmmmmm, cheese.

This dish is comfort food 101 and designed to spoil yourself and everyone at your Thanksgiving table with the kind of meal that leaves you feeling nourished and cared for.

This kale and broccoli salad with lemony vinaigrette is anything but basic. It's crunchy, chewy, salty, sweet, and loaded with flavor and texture in every bite.

This simple Roasted Pork Tenderloin is tender and juicy, and covered in the most delicious Red Wine Cherry Sauce. It's one of those quick and easy recipes that's both elegant and basic, simple enough for a causal weeknight meal, but gorgeous enough for a holiday dinner party.

If you, like me, have struggled to cook a steak that’s perfectly pink from edge to edge with a beautifully crisp crust, the reverse sear method is your new best friend.

This savory cherry sauce adds balance, brightness, and so much flavor to meat and poultry, and looks fancy even thought it's super simple to prepare.

These carnitas have been a favorite meal around our home for a really long time. A few years ago I served them for Thanksgiving, right along side the turkey. At the end of the day, we had tons of leftover turkey, while only a few lonely pieces of carnitas remained. Next year, I skipped the turkey altogether and just doubled the amount of carnitas.

The meat is crispy on the outside, super flavorful, fall-off-the bone tender, and couldn't be easier to prepare.

The recipe makes enough for a crowd or for plenty of leftovers that you can use throughout the week or freeze for later, and includes instructions for making them in your slow cooker or instant pot.

This beef and potato stew is a spin on Beef Bourguignon that's easier and more affordable, but every bit as hearty and delicious. Beef is stewed in a red wine and beef stock until the sauce is rich and thick and the meat is falling-apart-tender. Stir in some buttery baby potatoes and settle in for cozy, satisfying meal that will warm you from the inside out.

This rich and comforting vegetarian shepherd's pie includes a hearty stew of roasted mushrooms, onions, garlic, peas, and carrots topped with buttery cream cheese mashed potatoes. Even if you're not vegetarian, trust me, you will not miss the meat.

Give me a Green Chili smothered burrito or chili relleno over turkey any Thanksgiving!

This Green Chili recipe is the result of years of tweaking and testing (and eating!), until it was packed with as much rich, meaty chili flavor as I could cram in there. The recipe makes a giant pot of Chili - plenty for a crowd.

Last year, a couple of readers wrote to tell me they had made this dish as the centerpiece of their Thanksgivng meal. I thought this was a splendid idea!

This Latvian Stew recipe is based on a dish from the pages of A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. It's a simple, comforting combination of tender, slow cooked pork shoulder, carrots, onions, apricots, and prunes that's warm and flavorful and even better the next day.

This one-dish appetizer can be prepared on a stovetop, camp stove, Blackstone griddle, or a grill rack over an open fire. I especially like using a cast iron pan to make this cheesy mushroom dip because cast iron helps to keep the dip warm after it's removed from the heat.

Tender braised beef in a rich wine sauce with mushrooms, onions, garlic, red bell pepper, and tomatoes served over creamy garlic mascarpone mashed potatoes.

If you're looking for a main dish to replace the traditional Thanksgiving turkey, this dish is both elegant and 100% comfort food.

I can think of no better addition to a Thanksgiving spread than cheese stuffed pasta shells coverd in an incredible marinara sauce.

Pasta shells stuffed with ricotta, mozzarella, and parmesan cheese, covered in my all-time favorite homemade marinara sauce, smothered with even more cheese, and baked until rich and saucy, and deliciously cheesy.

This has been one of the favorite recipes on our Thanksgiving menu for the last several years. Creamy roasted corn with chorizo sausage, chipotle peppers and green chilies, topped with scallops that have been perfectly seared in butter and chorizo oil. This delicious combination of spicy, smokey, sweet, savory, and sour, is crazy good and will be on the table in less than 45 minutes.

Ok, yes. Pecan Pie IS a traditional Thanksgiving dessert for many people. But I still wanted to include this recipe on this list because, a) this recipe includes NO corn syrup, and b) it's baked in a cast iron skillet. And, I should add that it's quite possibly the best pecan pie you've ever had.

I've never met a potato I didn't like, but Crispy Fried Potatoes, also known as Country Potatoes, just might be my favorite way to eat them.

Regardless of what else is on your Thanksgiving table, this salad is the perfect, refreshing side dish.

Israeli Salad is a delicious, fresh mix of vegetables and herbs chopped into very small pieces so that every bite contains a variety of flavors and textures.

This version of the classic salad is dressed with Pomegranate Vinaigrette and a handful of crunchy Ja'ala (roasted spiced nut and seed mix).

This soup is a one-pot situation. Every single thing, from the bacon to the chicken, to the creamy rice and parmesan dumplings are cooked in the same pot.

A friend of mine told me that lasagna has been a staple dish at their Thanksgiving for as long as she can remember. I think it's the perfect holiday meal - cheesy, rich, delicious, and easy to make for a crowd!

The secret to the most delicious classic lasagna is to start with really, really good Homemade Marinara Sauce that's been slow simmered until it's rich and thick, and filling your whole house with the most intoxicating aroma.

Stir in plenty of Italian sausage and then layer it up with sheets of pasta and lots and lots of cheese.

Oh, but this creamy navy bean soup is so, so good. It's hearty, meaty, and more flavorful than bean soup has any business being.

Give me a plate full of pasta covered in bolognese sauce over a traditional Thanksgiving turkey any day!

Meaty, rich, slow simmered bolognese sauce is one of the world's all-time greatest comfort foods. This recipe with bacon and red wine is my favorite way to make this delicious classic Italian sauce.

Looking for a delicious and elegant appetizer for your holiday meal? These crowd pleasing one-bite treats are sure to impress!

Homemade cheddar crackers are topped with garlic mayonnaise, fresh cilantro, orange slices, almond chili salsa and tender flakes of Cedar Roasted Applewood Salmon with Orange and Ginger. Each little one-bite appetizer is a powerhouse of bright, fresh FLAVOR.

If you'd rather sit down to a steak than turkey on Thanksgiving, look no further.

Tender, marinated steak tips braised in wine, tomatoes, and fresh rosemary, and served over a bed of quinoa only takes about an hour, but tastes like you’ve been cooking all afternoon.

Move over mashed potatoes! These easy hash brown au gratin potatoes require only 6 ingredients and can be made in about 10 minutes. It's like wholesome comfort food with the convenience of fast food. When you're trying to get a holiday meal on the table, what could be better than that?

Homemade ravioli is a labor of love. But one bite of buttery pasta filled with roasted mushrooms and cheese and you'll know it's worth every minute.

Turkey or cheese enchiladas? For me, there's no contest. Enchiladas all the way.

And, the BEST cheese enchiladas (especially for a crowd!) aren’t rolled – they’re layered. Easy cheese enchilada casserole requires just three ingredients: corn tortillas, a ridiculous amount of cheese, and a kick-ass red chili enchilada sauce.

Mexican Adobo Chicken includes tender pieces of chicken cooked in a deliciously rich, smokey red chili sauce. The one-pot dish is pure comfort food and super easy to make.

Cooking Tri-Tip Steak in the slow cooker is a sure-fire method for falling-apart-tender steak that's juicy and packed with flavor. In this simple recipe, Tri-Tip Steak simmers in a rich gravy flavored with fennel, coriander, and paprika. It's both elegant and as comforting as a giant hug.

Roasted butternut squash stuffed pasta, drenched in brown butter sage sauce, and topped with toasted pumpkin seeds and garlic chili oil.

If you're looking for an impressive and unique potato side dish for your Thanksgiving meal, look no further!

Thin slices of potatoes are layered with onions, parsley, smoked salmon, loads of cheese, and a rich paprika cream sauce, topped with panko bread crumbs and baked into crispy, creamy, cheesy, awesomeness.

Tender pieces of chicken swimming in a sweet and savory apple cider cream sauce with caramelized mushrooms and golden, buttery apples. This dish will blanket your whole home with the warm, rich smells and flavors of fall.

This is the perfect cocktail for any holiday meal!

This elegant cocktail is simply a mixture of pear vodka, elderflower liquor, and champagne. It's deliciously elegant and can be served any way you like - in martini, cocktail, or wine glasses.

If you're serving cocktails for a crowd, mix up a pitcher of this cocktail minus the champagne and let guests pour their own topping their glass with as much or as little champagne as they like.

This casserole is everything we love about artichoke dip BUT a bit less rich and with plenty of cheese, tons of fresh spinach, and chicken of course. Plus a buttery, crispy layer of panko. So I ask you: How can you go wrong when dinner is a creamy, cheesy, crispy combo of chicken and veggies all in one dish?

This is a delicious crowd-pleasing cocktail that can be mixed up in small or large batches, depending on how many people you're serving this Thanksgiving.

Gin, orange liquor, fresh pomegranate seeds, ginger and lime come together in a refreshing, fun, and festive gin cocktail.

This creamy, cheesy Spanish Potato Soup is pure cozy comfort in a bowl. The soup includes buttery potatoes and tender pork carnitas swimming in a rich broth flavored with onion, red pepper, garlic, cumin, oregano, and paprika.

This is everything you need to know to bake the ultimate rich and creamy New York-style cheesecake. The recipe includes a traditional shortbread crust with the option for a graham cracker crust if that's your preference.

I've made this cheesecake countless times over the years, for every holiday and celebration you can imagine, and it's always a hit!

This super simple one-layer cake has a rich and creamy texture flavored with roasted pistachios, a generous amount of cardamom, and a thick layer of cream cheese buttercream.

This cake is somehow both casual and elegant, rustic and refined, as appropriate for a holiday dinner party as it is for an afternoon snack.

Creamy, cheesy, saucy, perfectly cooked pasta and rich, flavorful mushroom ragu come together to create a pasta and mushroom lover's perfect meal.

This delicious Almond Plum Cake tastes like a cross between cake and fruit cobbler. It is supremely moist and almost custard-like, thanks to the soft roasted sweet plums, almond paste, and a generous amount of Amaretto liquor.

These melt-in-your-mouth tender short ribs are super easy to prepare and can be cooked in an Instant Pot, Slow Cooker or the oven.

NOTE: The cook time for this recipe varies depending on whether you choose to cook your short ribs in an Instant Pot, Slow Cooker, or in the Oven.

If you give this recipe a try, let me know! Scroll down to rate this recipe and leave a comment for me!

This cake includes the traditional Thanksgiving flavors of cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg all wrapped up in a non-traditional chocolate covered package.

Dark brown sugar, applesauce, yogurt and plenty of vanilla add even MORE flavor, while also keeping it moist and extremely tender. Frosted with chocolate buttercream, the combination of flavors is interesting, complex, and absolutely delicious.

Oven roasting corn concentrates the flavor and gives the kernels a firm but juicy and tender texture that is about as far away from mushy as you can get.

You won't miss the meat in these chili and cheese stuffed peppers. Filled with black beans and rice and topped with cheese and the delicious crunch of crushed corn chips, these peppers are easy to make and cost about $5 per serving!

These stuffed peppers include a chili spiked ground beef filling topped with crunchy tortilla chips and plenty of melted cheese. Even better, this dish is both easy to make and affordable. Start to finish, these peppers will be on the table in about 45 minutes and cost just over $5 per serving!

Move over apple pie, there's a new Thanksgiving dessert in town!

This Apple cake is absolutely bursting with warm apple flavor thanks to concentrated Apple Cider Syrup, shredded sour apples, and a touch of cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice.

Apple Cider Buttercream delivers even more apple flavor and a thick, velvety layer of Dark Chocolate Ganache covers the cake with a blanket of bittersweet luxury.

This Bananas Foster Butter Cake is basically St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake topped with Bananas Foster Sauce. If you've never had St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake, you're in for a treat. It's a dense, yeast-risen cake topped with a layer of ooey-gooey butter and brown sugar deliciousness.

Topped with bananas foster sauce and a scoop of vanilla ice cream takes it over the top and makes a deliciously indulgent end to any holiday meal.

If you want all the flavor of apple pie with a fraction of the work, look no further than this apple cobbler recipe.

The recipe includes plenty of saucy cinnamon and clove spiced apples baked under a chewy cookie topping. The gooey brown sugar topping takes about 5 minutes to make and tastes like a soft, buttery sugar cookie.

If a classic Napoleon dessert isn't on your holiday menu, add it right this second.

The dreamy dessert includes flaky puff pastry layered with creamy vanilla pastry cream. It's one of those classic French pastries that exemplifies everything I love about French pastry - It's elegantly simple and deliciously indulgent.

You know that silky, intensely rich and creamy center of a really good chocolate truffle? That's basically this entire tart.

The decadent dark chocolate filling is flavored Grand Marnier and set inside a crispy chocolate cookie crust. The best part? For all its elegant indulgence, the tart is so easy to make it almost feels like cheating.

This Black Bottom Banana Cream Pie includes layers of chocolate pastry cream, vanilla rum custard, bananas, and whipped cream in a buttery vanilla wafer crust.

It's incredibly rich, creamy, and indulgent without being overly sweet, and has been a favorite Thanksgiving recipe in our family for years and years.

Quinoa Stuffed Acorn Squash just happens to be vegan and therefore dairy free but makes exactly zero sacrifices on flavor or that hearty stick-to-your-ribs feeling we all start to crave when the temperature drops and the days are short.

These little Smoked Salmon Appetizers are bursting with mind blowing amounts of flavor and guaranteed to impress. Homemade Cheddar and Chili Crackers are topped with a dollop of garlic mayonnaise, a slice of avocado, a few flakes of chili smoked salmon, and a spoonful of Chimichurri Sauce.

This year, skip the Thanksgiving pies and serve profiteroles instead! Fill them all with the same thing, or add some variety and serve them with a variety of fillings.

Profiteroles (cream puffs) are buttery little balls of choux pastry (pâte à choux) baked until light, tender, and puffed up to form a hollow center.

They are the perfect vessel for pastry cream, ice cream, whipped cream, all varieties of savory ingredients, or anything your imagination and taste buds, can dream up.

What could be a more elegant end to a meal than a gorgeous pear tart made with wine poached pears???

This elegant Pear Tart filled with Frangipane (almond cream) and topped with Red and White Wine Poached Pears tastes just as impressive as it looks. And, while it might appear difficult to make, it's surprisingly simple. As most good things are.

The tart is best eaten the day it's made, but each component - the pastry dough, frangipane, and poached pears can be prepared days in advance.

This creamy, curried roasted cauliflower soup with toasted coconut and crispy fried mushrooms is all about layer after layer of flavors and textures that stick to your ribs and warm you from the inside out.

This soup is a hearty way to start your Thanksgiving meal but it also makes a delicious vegan non-traditional main dish.

This Thanksgiving, save the cranberry sauce for dessert!

Almond cake is one of those desserts that seems rather plain and unassuming and then blows you away with how delicious it is. The cake couldn't be simpler to make and only includes a handful of ingredients. But the finished result is both rich and elegant.

This recipe makes 6 individual sized cakes for easy serving!

This banana snack cake is exceptionally soft, with a crumb so tender it's almost creamy. It's not overly sweet, packed with rich banana flavor, and the warm comforting hint of nutmeg and cloves.

Fudgy little peanut butter and oat filled balls of bliss, that's what these cookies are. And if that's not enough, they only take a few minutes to make and do not require an oven.

Is there such thing as no bake cookie perfection? Why yes there is and these addicting little balls of fudge are it.

The secret to making amazing meatloaf is to use a mix of ground beef and Italian sausage, plus plenty of finely chopped herbs and vegetables to keep every bite moist and flavorful. Topped with the best sweet and tangy glaze, this classic meatloaf is pure homemade comfort.

Filipino-style chicken adobo with coconut milk is truly one of the easiest and most delicious ways to cook chicken.

This orange drizzle cake is so rich, buttery, and tender you might actually call it creamy. The cake includes a few whole oranges stirred right into the batter and a generous drizzle of orange syrup. But don't think the drizzle means it's overly sweet. This cake isn't anywhere near the neighborhood of cloying. It's just bright orange flavor and sunshine on a plate.

These tender, buttery biscuits are filled with a swirl of cinnamon and sugar, topped with more cinnamon and sugar, and include the option of serving them with cream cheese frosting.

Tender, citrus-marinaded-and-chili-rubbed shredded pork is tucked into warm corn tortillas and topped with fresh orange slices, pico de gallo, and crumbled queso fresco.

These tacos are a party in your mouth, easy to scale up for a crowd, and can be prepared in the instant pot, slow cooker, oven, smoker, or in a dutch oven over the campfire.

Sheet Pan Greek Meatballs with Tzatziki sauce and tomato cucumber salad is a no-mess, easy weeknight meal with BIG, bold Mediterranean flavor.

These little brown sugar cookies are outrageously soft and chewy with an intense toffee-like flavor that comes from brown butter, brown sugar, and vanilla.

This pistachio cream cake is like an actual mic drop for your next dinner party or birthday party or anything party. It's what we like to call a show stopper and so good it's guaranteed to impress everyone you choose to share it with.

These buttery cookies are soft and chewy with crisp edges and loaded with chunks of melty chocolate and sweet-tart cherries in every bite.

This cake is quite possibly the lightest, softest cake I've ever eaten and is bursting at the seams with citrus flavor. The cake includes whole lemons that are blended right into the batter for a fresh lemon flavor like nothing you've ever experienced.

Pizza Rustica (AKA Italian Easter Pie) is a savory meat and veggie pie that's loaded with three kinds of cheese and baked in a slightly sweet, deliciously buttery and tender crust.

Chicken Paprikash is one of those simple, no-frills, soul-soothing meals that warms you from the inside out. Deliciously tender pieces of chicken cooked in a rich paprika cream sauce and spooned over a plate of buttered noodles.

When it comes to comfort food, this dish is not messing around.

This Coconut Cream Pie is easily at the top of my list of all-time favorite desserts. The filling is rich, ultra-creamy coconut pastry cream with plenty of sweet toasted coconut stirred in and piled into a nutty, buttery, super crispy Toasted Almond Crust.

This chocolate truffle cake is exactly what it sounds like - a rich, decadent, supremely chocolate cake that's so rich and creamy it literally melts in your mouth. Just like a chocolate truffle.