Mrs. Cubbison's Thanksgiving Tips

Healthy Thanksgiving

Yes! It can be done. You can have a delicious, healthy Thanksgiving meal without the heavy, calorie-laden dishes you’re trying to avoid. Surprise the family with Beet, Fennel and Mandarin Orange Salad or Rosemary Roast Turkey. They don’t even have to know how healthy it is.

    Bread & Bakery

    • Allspice Pastry (1/2 tsp)

    Canned Goods & Soup

    • Chicken broth (2 1/2 cup)
    • Cream of mushroom soup (10.75 oz condensed)
    • Pumpkin (1 can)
    • Crushed pineapple with juice (20 oz can)
    • Vegetable broth (10.5 oz can)

    Condiments, Spices & Bake

    • Mrs. Cubbison's Classic Seasoned Dressing (6 oz pkg)
    • Mrs. Cubbison's Multi-Grain Stuffing with Cranberries (2 bags)
    • Ground cinnamon (2 1/4 tsp)
    • Flour (3 Tbsp)
    • Garlic clove (7 Tbsp)
    • Ground ginger (1/4 tsp)
    • Ground nutmeg (1/8 tsp)
    • Ground clove (1/8 tsp)
    • Grated ginger (2 Tbsp)
    • Grated orange zest (1/2)
    • Italian seasoning (1 Tbsp)
    • Mandarin oranges (15 oz; drained)
    • Rosemary leaves (2 Tbsp)
    • Salt (1 1/8 tsp)
    • Brown sugar (3/4 cup)
    • Poultry seasoning
    • Pepper (2 1/4 tsp)
    • Olive oil (3/4 cup)
    • Miniature marshmallows (8 oz)
    • Mixed nutmeg (1/2 tsp)
    • Italian seasoning (1 Tbsp)
    • Unsweetened whipped cream (1 cup)
    • Spring mix (5 oz pkg)
    • Stuffing bread (14 oz)
    • White sugar (2 3/4 cup)
    • Cooked wild rice (1/2 cup)
    • Vinaigrette (shallot) (1/2 cup)

    Dairy, Eggs & Cheese

    • Butter (1/4 cup, 2 Tbsp)
    • Light butter (1 Tbsp)
    • Unsalted butter (2 sticks)
    • Eggs (4)
    • Crumbled goat cheese (1/2 cup)
    • Soy milk (10 oz, 1 3/4 cup)

    Fruit & Vegetable

    • Apple (1/4 cup)
    • Banana (1)
    • Basil (1 Tbsp)
    • Carrots (1/2 cup, 8 oz)
    • Celery (1/2 cup)
    • Cranberries (1 pound)
    • Dried cranberries (1/4 cup)
    • Medium fennel bulb (1)
    • Fresh green beans (1 pound)
    • Raisins (1 1/2 cups)
    • Pecans (5/6 cup)
    • Red/Gold beets (2 bunches)
    • Mushroom (1 cup)
    • Onion (3/4 cup)
    • Lemon (1 Tbsp)
    • Fresh mint (4 sprigs)

    Meat & Seafood

    • Cooked ham 1/4 cup

When planning a Thanksgiving menu with an eye on health, look in several directions:

  • serve a lot of vegetables
  • avoid using excess amounts of dairy
  • don't go overboard on rich desserts, but instead find some delicious recipes that are still health-conscious
  • prepare your turkey in the most healthful manner

Perhaps the most important aspect to a health-concscious Thanksgiving menu is paying attention to your side dishes. Let's face it: turkey is great, but it's usually the delicious stuffings, casseroles, and other side dishes that people keep hitting for seconds, and thirds, and fourths... So, it's especially important to make these favorite side dishes nutritious as well as tasty.

Look to lightly sautee vegetables instead of baking them all into casseroles with cream, milk, or cheese. Choose a stuffing recipe that's heavy on healthy ingredients instead of just plain heavy. And if you make a casserole, make one that's extremely flavorful without relying solely on melted cheese for it's appeal.

Start the meal off with a healthy salad with fresh vegetables like beets, or offer some protein-rich garbanzo beans in the salad that not only taste great, but will also be more hunger-satisfying, meaning your guests won't overeat on turkey meat and stuffing. An Asian-flavored salad with Mandarin Oranges can add a nice healthy burst of fruit to your Thanksgiving, or serve a cranberry salad to start things out with a menu item that's healthy, delicious, and traditional, all at once.

If you are serious about cutting down on fats at Thanksgiving, give consideration to an herb roasted turkey breast, instead of cooking a whole turkey. Serving all white-meat turkey breast, skinless, will make the whole meal that much more healthy, while still staying true to our traditional Thanksgiving expectations. (And... it's a lot easier to prepare a healthy turkey breast than it is to roast a whole turkey!)

Finally for dessert, consider options like a Raisin Pie, or make your traditional pumpkin or sweet potato pie with soy milk to keep dairy intake to a minimum.

It's easy when approaching Thanksgiving to say, "It's just one meal", and throw our usual good habits to the wind, but when you consider that you are likely to get several meals of leftovers out of a Thanksgiving feast, and with Christmas and New Year's fast approaching (meaning more holiday cooking), good healthy habits around the holidays can actually add up to a big difference by the time January rolls around.