Smaller Thanksgiving Recipes

Not all Thanksgiving feasts are enormous. Smaller households do not need a 20-pound turkey and multiple large dishes. Whether you are cooking for one, two, or even three to four people, this is for you. Let's review my suggestions to "cook small" for the holiday with small-batch recipes.

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Table of Contents
🦃Smaller Main Courses
🍠Small-batch Side Dishes
🍞Bread Recipes
🥧Mostly Small-batch Desserts
🍬Candy Recipes
⚕️Food Safety
🐕Don't forget the dogs.

Graphic for Thanksgivings Recipe roundup - Image licensed from Fotolia November 20, 2017. Copyright ©TeddyandMia - stock.adobe.com. Modifed per allow by licensed. — Image licensed from Fotolia November 20, 2017. Copyright ©TeddyandMia - stock.adobe.com. Modified as allowed by the license.

While I love Thanksgiving, the amount of work can be overwhelming. Let's fix that by starting with smaller recipes and planning for success. There is no need to be working for days. I have X amount of time and energy and will put it where it does most good.

Our smaller holiday feast is traditional, with a Roasted Turkey Breast, Sausage Stuffing, Sweet Potato Casserole, and Broccoli Slaw Salad.

🦃Smaller Main Courses

We usually start with a turkey breast, not the whole bird. And you can do two if you need more. Check out this variety of possibilities.

Oven Roasted Turkey Breast—The Easy Way

Learn how to oven-roast a turkey breast the easiest way, with crispy skin and juicy, tender meat. With these easy, step-by-step photo instructions, anyone can bake turkey breasts perfectly.

Oven Roasted Turkey Breast

turkey slice with gravy on orange plate.

Small Ribeye (Boneless Prime Rib) Roast

A ribeye roast, also known as a boneless prime rib roast, is a classic entrée for holidays and other special meals. With a garlic butter crust and delicious, juicy meat, this recipe is perfect for smaller gatherings but can easily be scaled for larger crowds. A bone-in stand rib roast can also be used.

How to Cook a Small Prime Rib Roast

Small Crock Pot Ham with Brown Sugar Honey Glaze

This Small Crock Pot Ham with Brown Sugar Glaze recipe uses Pineapple, a precooked quarter or half ham, and pantry spices to make a perfect holiday ham for a small household or as a second main dish for large holiday feasts.

Small Honey Ham Recipe

slices of ham with pineapple on white plater

Turkey Tenderloin Recipe

This Turkey Tenderloin Recipe uses a brief sear on the stovetop, then oven-roasted to finish for a moist and tender turkey. Perfect for a smaller Thanksgiving or other delicious dinner that is lean and healthy for smaller households.

Turkey Tenderloin Recipe

Grilled Turkey Breast

Grilled Turkey Breast is perfect for a smaller Thanksgiving or a healthier year-round change of pace. Use traditional seasoning or make BBQ with the recommended brown sugar dry rub.

Grilled Turkey Breast

How to Cook Ham Steak

Ham Steak makes a delicious dinner for two or more. Add the optional brown sugar-mustard glaze for the exceptional taste of grilled ham steak. Or cook on the stovetop or under the broiler.

Cooking Ham Steak

🍠Small-batch Side Dishes

Side dishes make the meal. Every family has its traditions, so here are ours. This recipe group is full-size but has specific small-batch instructions for making it smaller (except the last one).

Green Bean Casserole Without Mushroom Soup

This Green Bean Casserole without Mushroom Soup features tender green beans, a creamy sauce, lots of cheese, and your favorite toppings—a perfect Thanksgiving side dish. Once you make this easy recipe, you will never use that can of soup again!

Green Bean Casserole without Soup

Old Fashioned Sweet Potato Casserole

Make the holidays complete with an Old-Fashioned Sweet Potato Casserole. This easy, traditional recipe starts by baking sweet potatoes and ends with a pecan brown sugar topping or the alternate classic marshmallow topping. It is a creamy holiday classic that we enjoy every holiday season.

Sweet Potato Casserole Recipe

Mom's Sausage Dressing

Everybody loves this homemade sausage dressing, made from scratch with breakfast sausage meat. This perfect old-fashioned Thanksgiving side dish is cooked outside the turkey for safety. A full-size recipe that is easy to scale to a small batch of sausage dressing for two with fewer leftovers.

Sausage Dressing Recipe

How to Make Gravy—Quick and Easy

Learn to make the best homemade gravy from scratch with these easy instructions. With or without pan dripping, you can have perfect gravy in about 10 minutes with either a roux or flour slurry. The same techniques can be used to thicken most liquids.

How To Make Gravy

This delicious salad is already as small as it will go (8 servings) without significant waste

Broccoli Slaw Salad

Broccoli Slaw Salad has great crunch and flavor. It has broccoli slaw salad, veggies, almonds, and rice noodles. The homemade dressing is a delicious touch.

Broccoli Slaw Recipe

🍞Bread Recipes

I do love great bread. Here are some easy homemade choices—except the Julia Child's bread, but it is worth the work.

Easy Dinner Rolls

This easy dinner roll recipe is ready in an hour. You can serve delicious homemade yeast dinner rolls that are the perfect addition to any meal. Soft and fluffy, these easy yeast rolls will become a family favorite. Make a full recipe for the whole family or a small batch half recipe for smaller needs.

Easy Dinner Rolls

Lunch Lady Rolls—Small Batch Version

Old fashioned 60s school Lunch Lady Rolls, those wonderful hot rolls everybody loved in the cafeteria. You can now be made with this small batch recipe mixed by hand or in a stand mixer at home.

Lunch Lady Roll Recipe

Stand Mixer Lunch Lady Rolls from 101 Cooking for Two

Honey Wheat Dinner Rolls

These soft, homemade Honey Wheat Dinner Rolls are perfect for everyday or special dinners. Vary the amount of whole wheat flour to your taste and add a touch of honey—quick to make in about an hour.

Honey Wheat Roll Recipe

Now, a full-size choice, but it is worth trying at least once.

Julia Child's French Bread - Simplified

Julia Child's French Bread recipe is the ultimate crusty artisan French bread. An excellent round bread, simplified to the essentials to get it done with less fuss. While speed was not a goal, it was 5 hours from the start to the cooling rack.

Julia Childs French Bread

🥧Mostly Small-batch Desserts

We must have something sweet to finish the feast. Here are some easy treats.

Crock Pot Apple Crisp

This super easy Crock Pot Apple Crisp uses apples, oats, and pantry ingredients to make a delicious crock pot dessert perfect for a holiday or everyday dinner.

Crock Pot Apple Crisp

Easy Cheesecake Bars

These Easy Cheesecake Bars are creamy and delicious with a Graham cracker crust and lemon—the quick small-batch recipe you need with great tasting cheesecake bars.

Cheesecake Bar Recipe

Apple Berry Crumble

A fast, old-fashioned Apple Berry Crumble that combines apples and berries with a buttery streusel crumb topping. Use fresh berries and apples, or make it "semi-homemade" with frozen berries and a can of apple pie filling. So easy, so good.

Apple Berry Crumble

Full-size Dessert Recipes

If you need to take a dish to a larger gathering, I have included these larger recipes that are easier than they look.

Chocolate Chip Cheesecake or Cheesecake Bars

This easy Chocolate Chip Cheesecake recipe can be made as a whole cheesecake or, as we prefer, impressive Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Bars. It is simple and almost foolproof, using cream cheese, sweetened condensed milk, chocolate chips, and an Oreo crust. Please try our go-to recipe for parties or take-a-dish occasions.

Chocolate Chip Cheesecake and Bars

slice of chocolate chip Philadelphia cheesecake

Easy Cinnamon Apple Cake

You will love this moist and delicious old-fashioned cinnamon apple cake recipe. It is fast and easy, using only two apples and a few pantry ingredients. This small batch recipe is for an 8X8 or 9-inch round pan, but it is easy to double or make a half-size apple cake for two.

Easy Apple Cake

Easy Apple Crumble Pie

This easy Apple Crumble Pie recipe is quick to make with a few fresh apples, a premade crust, and a simple buttery crumb streusel topping! An everyday homemade apple pie recipe you will make over and over using refrigerated store-bought pie crust takes to do most of the work for you.

Apple Crumble Pie Recipe

🍬Candy Recipes

It's time to get into the holiday spirit and give some love to those you care about.

Easy 5-Minute Chocolate Fudge

This easy, foolproof 5-Minute Chocolate Fudge recipe only needs 3 ingredients—sweetened condensed milk, vanilla extract, and your choice of chocolate chips plus optional additives. Perfect for holiday gifts, parties, or snacks.

5-Minute Fudge

Crock Pot Chocolate Peanut Clusters

Chocolate Peanut Clusters are easy to make in your crock pot, microwave, or stovetop. Use four ingredients for the best nut clusters—nuts, chocolate chips, almond bark, and Bakers chocolate to boost the quality. Nothing says love like a gift of delicious homemade candy, so give them your best.

Chocolate Peanut Cluster Recipe

Chocolate peanut cluster being held in a hand.

Oreo Fudge

Oreo Fudge is a white fudge with crunchy bits of Oreo cookies. It is a variation of the classic 5-minute fudge recipe. You will love this fast and easy stovetop recipe as much as the creamy, delicious white chocolate fudge.

Oreo Fudge Recipe

Crock Pot Fudge

Make your holidays sweeter with this Crock Pot Fudge recipe. 4 ingredients and 55 minutes prep is all you need to make delicious chocolate fudge with the gentle heat of your crock pot—time to have fun with kids and make it together.

Crock Pot Fudge

pieces of fudge with nuts on a red plate

Cinnamon Candied Almonds

Candied almonds are easy to make at home. Sugar-coated with lots of cinnamon and vanilla, this simple roasted almond recipe can also be adapted to make candied cashews, peanuts, walnuts, or any mixture of these or other nuts. With six ingredients and 10 minutes of prep time, they are ready to roast to perfection.

Cinnamon Candied Almonds

Roasted candied almonds fresh out of the oven.

⚕️Food Safety

When I was still practicing medicine, I saw several kids with food poisoning—primarily minor after every major holiday. After only a few questions, the cause was almost always apparent and preventable with little care.

Gatherings are ready-made for food safety issues and leftovers at the party. Let's plan for food safety and get it right. Check out the USDA Food Safety recommendations.

🐕Don't forget the dogs.

Low-Fat Homemade Dog Treats—Healthy & Delicious

Low Fat Homemade Dog Treats are the perfect low-calorie treat for your dog. With only five ingredients, your dog will love the peanut butter and pumpkin taste. Much healthier than commercial treats—any veterinarian would approve.

Healthier Dog Treat Recipe