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Yes, You Can Cook Your Entire Thanksgiving Dinner In 1 Sheet Pan

Let’s be clear, Thanksgiving is as much about food as it is about family and this year more than ever our craving for the latter is as strong as our hankering for gravy-topped mashed potatoes. But in light of the pandemic, many of us are minimizing our Thanksgiving guest lists. Rather than a 10-pound turkey, this year you may only need the breasts. So why spend all of that extra energy sweating in the kitchen? You could be spending it with family thanks to a recipe hack that will blow you away: the one-pan Thanksgiving dinner.

It turns out that you can actually prepare a multi-course Thanksgiving meal using one (or in some cases, two) sheet pans. That’s right turkey, Brussels sprouts, potatoes, yams... the whole kit and kaboodle. And, if you take the advice of these savvy bloggers advice, it will all come out on time and delicious! Not only will this up the hours you can spend playing drinking game Jenga by the fire (What? Is that just a thing in my house?), you’ll also spare yourself hours of dishes. And if you really want to take a 2020 break from the trauma of Thanksgiving cooking, just buy a pie from a great bakery then DIY the whipped cream on to, allowing you to say that "you made it yourself” (shh, we won’t tell). If that’s not something to be thankful for this year, what is?

1.1-Hour Turkey, Stuffing, Brussels Sprouts, and Loaded Sweet Potatoes

Too often when reading a recipe, I get so excited at the short cook time that I forget to glance at the prep time and then find myself trapped in the kitchen for hours on what I thought would be a snappy meal. No one wants that to happen on Thanksgiving, which is why Damn Delicious' sheet pan Thanksgiving dinner is so great. We're talking 45 minutes of prep and an hour in the oven. How's that for easy cooking?

1-Pan Thanksgiving Dinner for 4

Not surprisingly, many sheet pan Thanksgiving recipes are designed to feed two, but this one from Small Space, Big Taste goes the extra mile to feed a party of four and AND clocks in at a stunningly short 1 hour 30 minutes total for prep and cook time. All that and you get turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, and green beans!

Simple 1-Sheet Thanksgiving Dinner for 4, or 2 Very Hungry People

Let's be real, no one is skipping seconds on Thanksgiving. So even if you're opting for a smaller feast, you still need to prepare for some return trips to the sheet pan. And that's where Leanne Brown's recipe comes in. The cookbook author shared this Simple One-Sheet Thanksgiving Dinner with PBS News Hour in 2015, but it's an evergreen classic made perfect with roasted Brussels sprouts and potatoes cooked together with a head of garlic. Can we say brilliant?

A Marshmallow-Friendly Candied Sweet Potato Situation

If you've never met a sweet potato that couldn't be improved by the topping of copious marshmallows, Chelsea's Messy Apron recipe will make you feel seen. In addition to essentially cooking four "dessert vegetables," you'll also walk away with parmesan Brussels sprouts, moist turkey, and sourdough dressing. There is one caveat, however: This recipe will take you 3 hours total, and the gravy situation is at your own discretion.

The Pretty As a Picture Sheet Pan Thanksgiving Dinner

Behold the power of ramekins. By layering these small oven-friendly dishes on your sheet pan, you can cook your cranberry sauce and stuffing at the same time as your sweet potatoes, Brussels sprouts, and turkey, then pull the whole thing out and have an Instagramable meal ready to serve up at the dinner table and social media. Hat tip to Imagelicious for that.

Sheet Pan Paleo Thanksgiving Dinner for Two

Listen, for some of us (not me), the pandemic has been an opportunity to rethink our health and get our bodies in shape. Well done you! So, naturally, Thanksgiving and its accompanying carbs can seem like a scary temptation... but not with Wholefully's Sheet Pan Paleo Thanksgiving Dinner for Two. Blogger Cassie Johnston applies the same strategies of using just one sheet pan to craft the meal, but trims the fat, so to speak, on the holiday excess with herb-roasted turkey, coconut-candied sweet potatoes, roasted cauli-rice pilaf, and rosemary pomegranate Brussels sprouts which hit all the right flavor notes without the boatloads of butter. Plus, the whole thing can be made from scratch in 90 minutes.

A Blistered Bean And Crispy-Creamy Potato Interpretation

For some people, mashed potatoes are non-negotiable on Thanksgiving. But if your own taste skews more spud undecided, then perhaps you'll dig i am a food blogger's smart one-pot wonder. Give yourself 30 minutes to mandolin your pseudo scallop potatoes and nestle all the goodies around your turkey, then this bad boy goes into the oven for just an hour and bam, turkey and leftovers for two.

The 1-Pan, 1-Hour Turkey Dinner (with roasted chestnuts too!)

The key to French Revolution Food's recipe is to prepare this one pan, one hour dinner using an off-the-bone turkey roast cooked with thyme, orange, and lemon. Next to this go roast carrots — which will become a twist on mashed potatoes — and some Brussels sprouts and chestnuts on the other side of the pan. Set it at 375 degrees and a mere 60 minutes later, dinner is served.

Vegetarian Sheet Pan Thanksgiving Dinner

Is Thanksgiving dinner really Thanksgiving dinner without a turkey? We're here to tell you "Yes, it most certainly is." Especially when you use Live Eat Learn's brilliant sheet pan trick for getting all those great Thanksgiving flavors without any animal proteins. Swap out your bird for herby rice stuffed butternut squash — which blogger Sarah Bond even trusses for added effect — then frame your gourd with roasted Brussels sprouts with cranberries and crispy roasted potatoes. And if you have extra bandwidth, prepare a muffin pan with brie and cranberry sauce stuffed puff pastry bites. Clocking in at just under two hours, this is an easy, filling, super healthy take on the holiday meal.