These Cranberry Sauce Muffins turn 3/4 cup of leftover whole berry cranberry sauce into six tender muffins with orange zest and sour cream. Make them with homemade or canned sauce for a smart day-after-Thanksgiving breakfast.

“Delicious! Nice high muffins. A great way to use leftover cranberry sauce. I doubled the recipe. Glad I did because these are so yummy.”

Kathy

“This is an amazing recipe! I made five batches and froze them! They freeze very well!”

Carrie

Turn Leftover Cranberry Sauce Into Breakfast

The day after Thanksgiving, the cranberry sauce can be easy to overlook next to all the other leftovers. When I made these muffins with homemade whole berry cranberry sauce, I loved how the tart fruit tasted with fresh orange zest and the tender sour cream batter.

This recipe makes just six muffins in about 35 minutes, which is a reasonable amount of baking when the refrigerator is already full. The cranberry sauce is folded in last, leaving pockets of berry throughout the muffins rather than turning the entire batter pink.

These Greek Yogurt Mashed Potatoes combine fluffy potatoes with tangy Greek yogurt, lemon, feta cheese, garlic and fresh oregano. Ready in 40 minutes, they’re a flavorful alternative to traditional mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving, Easter or an ordinary weeknight dinner.

“FABULOUS potatoes – Thank you for such a wonderful recipe.”

—Anne

These Greek Mashed Potatoes Were Inspired By My Favorite Greek Fries

One of my favorite local Greek carryout restaurants serves their french fries topped with feta cheese, oregano and a generous squeeze of lemon juice. I’ve become slightly obsessed with lemon juice on fries, and I find myself asking for a lemon wedge at other restaurants, too. The servers probably assume it’s for my water, but it’s not.

These Greek Yogurt Mashed Potatoes take that same combination of potatoes, lemon, feta and oregano and turn it into a creamy side dish. Instead of crispy fries, you get fluffy mashed potatoes with a bright, tangy finish.

Greek yogurt takes the place of sour cream, adding richness and tang without making the potatoes heavy. Garlic cooks right alongside the potatoes, and lemon juice, zest and feta get folded in at the end to keep their flavors fresh.

They’re just as welcome alongside a weeknight dinner with a simple protein as they are with lamb or ham for Easter. And don’t rule them out for Thanksgiving! The lemon and feta bring a fresh, tangy contrast to all the rich dishes on the holiday table. If you’ve never tried lemon in mashed potatoes before, this is a very good place to start.

These roasted Brussels sprouts with cranberries and pecans have a buttery orange-maple glaze. Perfect for Thanksgiving because they travel well and taste great at room temperature!

A Thanksgiving Brussels Sprouts Recipe With A Little Something Extra

There is always lots of stuff competing for oven space on Thanksgiving, so a vegetable side needs to be worth the trouble. These Brussels sprouts have been part of my Thanksgiving dinner for a few years now, and I can confidently report that they are worth the oven space. Even better, they travel well and taste great at room temperature, making them perfect for bringing to somebody else’s holiday gathering.

Start with the most important part: roasting them cut side down until the edges are deeply browned. While they roast, dried cranberries simmer with fresh orange juice, maple syrup and apple cider vinegar until plump and soft. A little butter finishes the glaze, and toasted pecans add crunch. The sweet-tart sauce goes on after roasting, so the sprouts get a chance to brown before extra moisture is added back to the mix.

I developed this recipe specifically for Thanksgiving, but the cranberry-orange combination works just as well at Christmas. And since there’s no need to serve these piping hot, they’re one less thing to worry about getting to the table at exactly the right time.

This Roasted Sweet Potato Salad is made for Thanksgiving potlucks! Tender roasted sweet potatoes are tossed with a maple-mustard vinaigrette, dried cherries, crunchy pepitas and feta cheese. It’s easy to make ahead, travels well and tastes great warm or at room temperature.

A Thanksgiving Side Dish That Doesn’t Need Reheating

Thanksgiving potlucks can get a little complicated when everybody shows up with a dish that needs oven space. I developed this roasted sweet potato salad specifically to be a Thanksgiving side dish that travels well and doesn’t need to be reheated before serving.

It starts with sweet potatoes roasted until tender and lightly browned. While they’re in the oven, a maple-mustard vinaigrette comes together with thinly sliced shallots, celery and dried cherries. The warm potatoes are tossed with the dressing, then finished with crunchy roasted pumpkin seeds, crumbled feta and fresh parsley.

Unlike a traditional cold sweet potato salad, this one is meant to be served warm or at room temperature. You can bring it to the table shortly after roasting or prepare it ahead for a holiday gathering. And with maple syrup, dried cherries and thyme, the flavors fit right in with a Thanksgiving menu.

These Balsamic Green Beans are a fresh, tender-crisp alternative to heavier holiday sides. They’re browned in a skillet, finished with a tangy-sweet balsamic glaze, and ready in just 15 minutes.

Take Green Beans To A Whole New Level

I make a pretty unpopular choice for Thanksgiving here in the Midwest: I don’t usually serve green bean casserole. Gasp, I know. I do have a Crockpot Green Bean Casserole recipe for when I’m asked to bring it to a gathering, but on my own Thanksgiving table, I generally prefer green beans that are fresher, lighter and still have a little bite.

That doesn’t mean green beans are missing from my table. These Balsamic Green Beans have fit right into my Thanksgiving menu for years, but they’re simple enough to make the other 364 days of the year, too (and I do).

The method is part sautéing, part steaming: the beans get a little color in a hot skillet first, then a splash of water finishes cooking them without turning them mushy. Toss them with tangy-sweet Balsamic Glaze at the very end and the entire side dish is done in 15 minutes.

This Parsnip Puree is silky, savory and holiday-table worthy, with Parmesan and garlic blended right in and warm brown butter spooned over the top.

The Parsnip Side Dish I Should Be Making More Often

I cooked with parsnips pretty regularly in culinary school, but somehow they never made it into my home cooking rotation nearly as often. That’s a shame, because they’re delicious, naturally sweet without being sugary, and especially good when you treat them as their own special thing instead of just a substitute for potatoes.

This recipe is exactly the kind of thing that reminds me why I like them so much. The parsnips are cooked until very tender, allowed to dry off after draining, then blended with warm cream, butter, Parmesan and thyme until completely smooth.

With brown butter spooned over the top, it tastes exactly like the kind of silky vegetable puree you’d get as part of a composed dish at a fancy restaurant (picture it puddled underneath a thick slice of Prime Rib Roast). But it’s also practical enough to make as a Thanksgiving or Christmas side dish alongside the usual potatoes, stuffing and gravy.

Brown Butter Is Easy Until The Last 30 Seconds

Brown butter is simply butter cooked until its milk solids toast, giving it a deeper, nuttier flavor. But the most useful part of learning how to brown butter is knowing exactly when to stop.

This method uses a light-colored skillet or saucepan so you can clearly see the milk solids changing color. The butter will melt, foam and look fairly uneventful for a few minutes. Then things move fast. Once those little bits are deep amber and the butter smells nutty and toasted, get it out of the hot pan immediately.

Brown butter is also known as beurre noisette, which translates to “hazelnut butter” in French, a reference to its nutty aroma and toasted color.

This Slow Cooker Asian-Style Pulled Pork is fall-apart tender and loaded with sweet, savory and spicy flavor from homemade gochujang BBQ sauce. Serve it over rice with crisp vegetables or pile it onto buns for an easy hands-off dinner.

Slow Cooker Pulled Pork With A Bold Asian BBQ Sauce

I’ve always been a little more nervous developing slow cooker recipes than stovetop recipes. On the stove, if I overdo the liquid by a smidge, I can usually just cook it down. Once the lid goes on the slow cooker, I’m basically committed.

This Asian-style pulled pork keeps things much simpler. Pork shoulder gets cut into a few large pieces, seasoned and cooked with just enough Asian BBQ Sauce to flavor the meat without drowning it. Once the pork is tender enough to shred, it gets tossed with more sauce so the gochujang, garlic, ginger and sesame flavors stay prominent.

The result is tender, saucy pork that works just as well in a hamburger bun as it does piled over cooked rice with crunchy vegetables.

This Asian Cucumber Salad is cool, crisp and tangy, with thinly sliced cucumber, green onion, rice vinegar and toasted sesame oil. It takes about 5 minutes to toss together, then a quick chill lets all those sweet, savory and nutty flavors soak in.

This Started As A Rice Bowl Topping, But It’s Too Useful To Stop There

I originally developed this sesame cucumber salad as the cool, crunchy component for a Asian Pulled Pork rice bowl. But once I made it, I realized I didn’t need to wait for the rice bowl to make it again. It’s just as useful as a quick side dish for grilled meat, salmon or pretty much anything served with rice.

There’s almost no technique required here. Thinly sliced cucumber and green onion get tossed directly with rice vinegar, sugar, sesame seeds, toasted sesame oil and salt, then everything chills together for 30 minutes. The cucumber picks up plenty of sweet-tangy sesame flavor while still keeping its crunch.