Thanksgiving Vegetable Side Dishes

This simple roasted vegetable side dish tastes rich and complex thanks to mustard-spiced butter.

Tyler Florence uses beets and their greens to make this fresh and vibrant side dish for Thanksgiving. If you can’t find beets with beautiful greens, Swiss chard or curly spinach leaves can be used instead.

This dish is a genius way to use up the stems of any hardy green. We used collard stems, but you could also use kale, chard or mustard stems.

F&W’s Kay Chun uses the typical piccata flavors of lemon, capers and garlic in her tasty sautéed greens.

Butternut squash tastes like a whole new vegetable when grilled—crisp, bright and not overly sweet.

This rich and delicious creamed kale from star chef Tyler Florence is an excellent swap for more traditional creamed spinach.

When roasting winter vegetables, Melissa Rubel Jacobson says be sure to chop them about the same size, so they cook at the same rate. And toss them at least once while they’re in the oven, so they brown evenly.

Halved acorn squash make perfect single-serving bowls. These make a great vegetarian main course for any winter holiday, but they’re also a festive accompaniment to turkey, ham or roast goose.

Thanksgiving Make-Ahead Tip: The herbed goat cheese and the vinaigrette can be refrigerated overnight. The vegetables can be roasted earlier in the day and kept at room temperature.

Goat butter (sold at specialty-food stores; use regular butter if unavailable) is white, smooth and creamy. Chef Tyler Brown likes using it in this riff on the classic pairing of roasted beets and goat cheese.

We love the earthy porcini topping on this rich and creamy turnip gratin, but it would also be fantastic on mac and cheese or other root vegetable gratin.

Michael Symon’s four-ingredient potatoes get plenty of flavor from browned butter and crème fraîche. Reserve a little browned butter to drizzle on the potatoes just before serving.

Sometimes rethinking just means not overthinking. Don’t forget to enjoy seasonal ingredients just as they are.

This classic is updated with deep-flavored cheddar and a crunchy topping of crumbled crackers and toasted almonds.

Cauliflower may not seem like a glamorous vegetable—at least not when you steam or boil it. But roast it and it develops an unusual, delicate sweetness that’s almost exotic.

Thanksgiving Make-Ahead Tip: The orange-chile oil can be refrigerated for 3 days.

“My granny taught me that when corn is very fresh, the juices are naturally creamy,” Kevin Gillespie says. “I took that as the gospel.” He grates half of the corn here to make a luxurious puree that thickens without cream.

Kevin’s Tip: Scraping corn cobs with the dull side of a knife removes the juices.

Maria Helm Sinskey claims that a rich gratin topped with cheesy bread crumbs is the only way her children will eat Swiss chard. “I’ve learned that a little cream and cheese gets my kids to finish their vegetables,” she says.

Warm salads used to be common on restaurant menus, but their popularity has waned, for no good reason. This terrific salad is made with warm mushrooms that develop great meaty flavor when cooked with soy sauce.

Here, Barbara Lynch adds fresh chestnuts to give the dish a meaty fall flavor. Finely chopped dates in the cider vinegar dressing lend a lovely, subtle sweetness.

This is Allison and Slade Rushing’s Southern interpretation of French creamed spinach. The collards add a pleasant bitterness to this lush side dish, but it’s important to shred them finely before you simmer them in the cream or they’ll never get tender.