Holiday Vegetable Side Dishes

By Food & Wine
Updated May 17, 2017
© Con Poulos
Give your vegetables the shine they deserve with these holiday side dishes. Try your hand at a creamed kale recipe from Tyler Florence or roasted squash with crispy bulgur crumbs from F&W's Kay Chun. We've also got options for lemony fingerling potatoes, honey-glazed roasted root vegetables, roasted beets with beet green salsa verde and more.
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Creamed Kale


© John Kernick
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This rich and delicious creamed kale from star chef Tyler Florence is an excellent swap for more traditional creamed spinach. The dish is topped with crispy kale leaves for a bit of crunch. Bonus: this recipe can be prepared two days in advance, making holiday cooking a breeze.

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Sautéed Collards and Cabbage with Gremolata

© Con Poulos
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These crunchy sauteed greens from TV chef Carla Hall get big flavor from garlic, lemon and crushed red pepper.

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Roasted Squash with Crispy Bulgur Crumbs

© Christina Holmes
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F&W's Kay Chun tops sweet roasted winter squash with crispy pan-fried bulgur seasoned with coriander seeds.

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Sweet Potatoes with Toasted Marshmallow Swirls

© John Kernick
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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.

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Roasted Winter Squash with Vanilla Butter

Con Poulos
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Fragrant vanilla-bean butter does double duty here--it both flavors the squash and softens the skin during roasting. The greater the variety of winter squash you use, the more interesting the dish will be.

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Roasted Beets with Beet Green Salsa Verde

© John Kernick
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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.

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Broccoli Matchsticks and Kale Salad

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This delicious, healthy salad makes use of sweet broccoli stems.

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Jerk-Spiced Brussels Sprouts, Cauliflower and Chickpeas

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Jonathon Sawyer makes a fantastic jerk spice blend to sprinkle on a mix of chickpeas, cauliflower and brussels sprouts after they’ve been roasted. You’ll have some left over, but the blend is also great on shrimp and chicken.

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Glazed Carrots with Cardamom and Ginger

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Most people cook carrots in water, Shawn McClain says, which dulls their flavor. His secret to keeping them supertasty is to cook them in carrot juice and orange juice until glazed.

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Roasted Cabbage with Warm Walnut-Rosemary Dressing

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These hearty cabbage wedges, roasted until golden brown and topped with a fragrant, buttery dressing with rosemary and walnuts, can be made well in advance and served to a crowd.

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Spinach-Shiitake Bread Puddings

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Jean-Georges Vongerichten took the American stuffing basics and reconfigured them. This dressing, which he prefers to cook outside the bird, takes an unexpected form. It can be made ahead and rewarmed as the turkey rests.

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Mixed Crudités with Green Goddess Dressing

© John Kernick
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This elegant crudité is perfect for a hearty holiday meal: Lightly dressed vegetables are served in lettuce cups with Green Goddess dressing for dipping.

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Flash-Roasted Broccoli with Spicy Crumbs

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The genius idea here is pulsing sliced pepperoni with bread crumbs to add a ton of extra flavor and a great crunch to broccoli.

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Balsamic-Glazed Cipollini with Lemon and Bay Leaves

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Called cipollini agrodólce in Italian for their sweet-and-sour vinegar glaze (agro means sour; dólce, sweet), these soft and tangy onions are a fantastic accompaniment to any rich roast meat.

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Carrot Flan with Thyme Crumbs

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Carrots, the ultimate good-for-you vegetable, can also be decadent—as this silky, thyme-crusted flan proves.

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Braised Dandelion Greens

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Sautéed Radishes with Orange Butter

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Emeril Lagasse sautés radishes and their greens with bacon, shallots and orange juice until they’re perfectly crisp-tender.

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Lemony Salt-Roasted Fingerling Potatoes

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This lemon-scented herb salt makes a great seasoning for everything from roasted white fish to grilled chicken and pork to steamed vegetables—and of course, any kind of potato. Grinding the sage, rosemary and thyme into the salt, rather than just stirring it in, helps intensify and meld the flavors.

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Roasted Beets with Pistachios, Herbs and Orange

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Beets are a no-brainer for healthy meals since they taste great even when they’re simply roasted with a little oil. Naomi Pomeroy goes beyond that, topping red and golden beet slices with a lively mixed-herb dressing, pistachios and celery leaves.

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Gingered Green Beans

Petrina Tinslay
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Scott Conant makes his crisp-tender beans with ground ginger, since freshly grated ginger invariably creates unappealing little chunks.

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Honey-Glazed Roasted Root Vegetables

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The secret to this sweet, slightly tangy dish: the touch of sherry vinegar in the glaze.

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Sautéed Rainbow Chard with Garlic and Lemon

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For a gorgeous, relatively light Christmas side dish, Fabio Trabocchi turns to rainbow chard, which has crisp-tender stalks in an array of bright yellows, pinks and reds. Plain green Swiss chard is delicious here too.

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Roasted Garlic-Parmigiano Broccoli

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Roasting broccoli makes it sweet; topping it with Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese and broiling it makes it addictively crispy and almost nutty tasting.

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Ombré Potato and Root Vegetable Gratin

© Con Poulos
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TV chef Carla Hall layers red beets, sweet potatoes, Yukon Golds and turnips for her fantastic vegetarian gratin, which she top with a crispy Parmesan cheese crust.

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