Thanksgiving Side Dishes For A WFPB Feast
At the end of this month, Americans will gather around beautifully decorated tables to indulge in a decadent meal to celebrate Thanksgiving. This celebratory meal will be high in animal products, fat and especially calories. Only, you’re whole food plant-based (WFPB) now. Does that mean you have to give up your favorite Thanksgiving dishes? Will you eat your favorites and throw the new eating plan out the window?
The answer to both of these questions is no. This may be the one instance where you can have your cake — or pumpkin pie — and eat it, too. You just need to re-design your meal to fit your eating plan, and it’s pretty easy to do. The internet is full of WFPB versions of all of your favorite holiday dishes, such as mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and stuffing. I’ve compiled a list of five side dish recipes to get you started.
- Whole Food Plant-Based Stuffing Recipe by The Jaroudi Family
For many, the stuffing for the turkey is the best part of the Thanksgiving meal. It’s definitely mine. Well, good news. You can still have it. You just need to make a few tweaks to how you make it and Brittany, of the Youtube channel, The Jaroudi Family, shows you how in her video titled, “Whole Food Plant Based Stuffing Recipe.” It’s a fairly easy recipe that starts with a WFPB bread. Brittany recommends a couple of different brands. Add to this a few vegetables, miso, nutritional yeast, vegetable broth, and some herbs and spices and you’re done. She even recommends a few optional add-ins such as pecans, cranberries, apples or pears. You do have to saute the vegetables first, but that’s not too much extra trouble. She mixes everything up in her casserole dish and sticks it in the oven. Pretty simple and it looked pretty delicious. Give it a try. It might just be a great addition to your Thanksgiving table.
And, of course, you cannot have stuffing without gravy. I’d like to suggest Dr. McDougall’s Golden Gravy recipe. You can find it in his book, “The Starch Solution” or you can watch it being made on the YouTube channel, “Cooking With Plants.” The video is titled, “Dr. John McDougall’s Fat-Free Golden Gravy Recipe by Cooking With Plants.”
I made this and it’s a pretty good gravy. Although, if I make it again, I think I’ll cut way back on the soy sauce so the broth flavor will come through more. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a tasty gravy, but It was a little too much like thickened soy sauce. But that’s just me. I know there are a lot of people out here who use this recipe regularly and really enjoy it, so don’t let my issue with it keep you from trying it. I did enjoy it with my mashed potatoes. It might just be perfect for your taste.
Whole Food Plant Based Stuffing
Dr McDougall’s Fat Free Golden Gravy Recipe
2. Easy Cranberry Sauce by The Jaroudi Family
Yes, I went back to the Jaroudi Family one more time. While there were plenty of cranberry sauce recipes on YouTube, this was one of very few that were specifically labeled as WFPB.
This recipe looked even simpler than the stuffing recipe. There are only five ingredients and it’s sweetened with date paste. If you don’t know how to make date paste, Brittany has another video to show you how to make that.
Similar to the dressing, Brittany suggests a few add-ins such as chopped apples, chopped pears, raisins or orange zest.
Cranberry sauce is a part of the Thanksgiving meal that so many enjoy and it has health benefits too, once you eliminate all that sugar. Cranberries are just loaded with antioxidants. So it’s easy to make, healthy and popular. It’s a win-win-win.
3. Plant-Based Vegan Green Bean Casserole by The Whole Food Plant
Based Cooking Show
This recipe is a great WFPB take on the standard green bean casserole recipe. Jill, the host of the channel, makes her own almond-milk-based cream sauce to replace the cream of mushroom soup that is usually used in this dish. Then she finishes the dish off with a crumble consisting of cashews, nutritional yeast and onion powder to replace the usual fried onions.
If you have issues with nuts, You could tweak the recipe a bit to eliminate the cashews and the almond milk. I think hemp hearts would be a good substitute for the cashews and any plant milk would work in the sauce.
You do need a blender or food processor for this one to make both the sauce and the topping. Also, it’s a fairly small recipe. Jill bakes it in a large loaf pan, so if you’re making it for a large group you will probably want to double or even triple the recipe.
So no need to miss your green bean casserole. Just put your old recipe away and use this one instead.
Plant-based Based Vegan Green Bean Casserole
4. Vegan Mashed Potatoes (oil-free, Fat-free) by Krocks in the Kitchen
I was initially skeptical about this recipe. I didn’t think using vegetable broth in the mashed potatoes would result in as tasty a dish as if you had used plant milk. I’m happy to say I was wrong. I gave this a try and I rather enjoyed it. I really liked the touch of mustard that Brian Krock added to the recipe. It was only a teaspoon, but it added a lot of flavor. I also think you could omit the mustard and add more garlic powder, or even fresh garlic, and make very tasty garlic mashed potatoes.
I thought it worked well with Dr McDougall’s Golden Gravy. I would make this again.
The recipe is simple — only eight ingredients. It does contain a touch of salt, but you can omit that if your diet is totally salt-free. This recipe is fat-free and oil-free and here’s a bonus. It’s totally Mary’s Mini compliant. So besides using the recipe for Thanksgiving, you can also use it on your next potato mini. It’s a winner in my book. Give it a try and let me know in the comments what you think of it.
Recipe: Vegan Mashed Potatoes by Krocks in the Kitchen
5. Easy Sweet Potato Casserole by Plant Based Dads
I’ve watched the video for this recipe two or three times and it looks delicious. It’s essentially mashed sweet potatoes with a crunchy, oaty, nutty topping. This is channel host Joey Troxel’s personal recipe that he adapted to fit the Starch Solution Diet. It’s oil-free, fat-free and dairy-free. It does have a good amount of sugar. It contains both brown sugar and maple syrup. It’s also not nut-free, but you might be able to adapt it.
Besides the maple sugar, the sweet potatoes are flavored with flax meal, apple sauce, plant milk, vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg. There’s a little salt too, but you can omit that if you wish.
Joey noted that he had to double the recipe for the topping in order to have enough to cover the top of his casserole. It’s a decent size casserole. It was made in a 9 x 13 baking dish.
If the amount of sugar in it bothers you or the act that there’s refined sugar at all, then you can take a look at a similar recipe by The Whole Food Plant Based Cooking Show. Jill’s recipe is essentially the same recipe only the entire dish is sweetened with dates instead of sugar and maple syrup. Both recipes look quite tasty. Check both of them out and use the one that best fits your taste and dietary preference.
Easy Sweet Potato Casserole | Starch Solution…
The Best Plant-Based Sweet Potato Casserole by The Whole Food Plant Based Cooking Show
6. Creamy Pumpkin Pie by Jill McKeever
We’ve talked about a whole selection of side dishes to fill your Thanksgiving table, but what about a dessert? Can you have dessert on a WFPB diet? Yes, of course, as long as you use the right recipe and I’ve got a good one for you.
This creamy pumpkin pie starts with a crust made of oats, dates, almond butter and a little plant-based milk. Jill says the crust tastes like a granola bar. That sounds super tasty to me. There’s more milk in the filling along with pumpkin — of course, maple syrup, cashews, walnuts, lemon juice, corn starch, pumpkin pie spice and vanilla.
If you need to be nut-free, I think some substitutions would work just fine. I would try some sunflower seed butter in place of the almond butter and Jill says you could use sunflower seeds in place of the walnuts. As far as the cashews go, I bet hemp hearts would be an adequate swap.
Jill even shows you how to make an easy but quite pretty, textured top for your pie. Her video is a bit long at a little over 33 minutes, but you hardly notice it. I find her quite entertaining. You’ll like her too if you’re into a little goofiness (her word, not mine) with your cooking videos. Give Jill and her recipe a looksee. You won’t regret it.
Creamy Pumpkin Pie is Pure Plant Based Awesomeness
Conclusion
If there’s a time of year when we all tend to overindulge in calorie-laden, high-fat foods, Thanksgiving is it. But it doesn’t need to be this way. You don’t have to go completely off the rails during the holidays. It just takes a little tweaking to make your regular recipes WFPB-compatible. You can still enjoy all your favorites without the fat, without the animal products and without the calories. You can turn your standard Thanksgiving meal into a WFPB feast and I hope these recipes give you a start to making this happen. Good luck and Happy Thanksgiving!
Now that we’ve gone over several Thanksgiving side dishes and a dessert, are you wondering what you’re going to do for a main dish? Look for my next post when I provide you with the perfect solution.
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Disclaimer: I am not a doctor or a medical professional. The information provided on the site is for educational purposes only and does not substitute for professional medical advice. Please consult your doctor before making dietary changes or using any advice given here.