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Thanksgiving 2025

I'm going out to dinner with Jan and Steve for actual Thanksgiving, but I like to have turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, and stuffing vacuum sealed and frozen for later meals, so this is my abbreviated prep. It's much smaller than an actual Thanksgiving meal because it doesn't include all of the sides, many of which do not freeze that well or I don't love enough to have for several more meals.

Most of this post is just copy and pasted from Thanksgiving 2024 with minor edits.

Early shopping list

This is most of the shopping that can be bought ahead of time, purchased November 14, 2025:

Other things that I did not need but sometimes do:

Mashed potatoes

I got a 13 oz. of prepared, refrigerated, Yukon gold mashed potatoes at the grocery store deli. I've had them before and they're good, and way less work than making them from scratch!

Divided the package into 4x packages of 3.7 oz. each, vacuum sealed and frozen. I needed 6 packages for dinners, but I still had 4 extras frozen so this was enough to make Thanksgiving dinner servings.

Turkey (prep)

I got a 14.7 lb. frozen turkey. I really only needed around 12.5 lbs., but this is what they had. I have plenty of room the chest freezer for a turkey this size.

The USDA guideline is 3-4 days in the refrigerator for a 12 to 16 pound turkey, and can remain refrigerated for 1 to 2 days before cooking.

I plan to cook it on Wednesday (2025-11-26), so 4 days before is Saturday (2024-11-22).

It fit in my refrigerator.

I later moved it to my beverage refrigerator because it disrupted the normal order of my kitchen refrigerator.

It was still a little frozen so starting it Friday would be better.

Turkey (cooking)

Since this meal isn't going onto a table I had a little more flexibility on how to cook it. There is discussion in Thanksgiving 2023 on how I came to make it this way, and it works so well I'm doing this from now on.

I break down the turkey like chicken parts. This greatly speeds up cooking but most importantly I can remove parts as they get done and everything is cooked perfectly.

IThe turkey wasn’t entirely defrosted and I couldn’t get the neck out of the cavity. At this point in disassembly it seems… inappropriate. LOL

The breast portion (bone-in) and legs and thighs. And another roasting pan with the wings and backbone, cut in half.

I used slightly more than the temperatures from the Serious Eats spatchcock recipe.

The breast cooks more slowly than I expected, which isn't that surprising, because it's the thickest piece of meat (and has a bone).

The leg and thigh cook faster than I expected when not underneath the turkey, which also makes sense. Also there is way more variability based on where you place the temperature probe in the leg and thigh. Don't just rely on the permanent probe temperature.

The breast, leg, and thigh don't create that much fat, because the fatty parts have been removed. I was worried about this because they were only in a sheet pan, not a full roasting pan. It was fine.

The wings, backbone, neck were on the bottom rack and weren't as browned, but this is fine because they're just going into the instant pot for turkey stock.

Sliced.

6x servings of 4.5 oz. each for dinner.

One serving for lunch today (2.4 oz.) and one for Friday (2.0 oz).

3x servings of 2.8 oz. for turkey and cabbage stir-fry.

2x servings of 2.0 oz. for curried turkey salad. 1x serving of 2.5 oz. for turkey sandwich.

Notes for 2026:

Fresca mimosa

During preparation I had a few Fresca mimosa. They're delicious - I like them better than orange juice.

Gravy

Defrosted 32 oz. of turkey stock (2 packages of 16 fl oz). I vacuum sealed and froze it last year, and will be the base for the gravy.

I put the frozen bags in the sous vide at 140°F which also had the advantage of making the stock warm to add to the roux.

The gravy is based on this recipe and is:

Add the butter to the pan and melt. And the flour and cook for 5 minutes or more to make a roux. It should smell slightly nutty, but not burnt.

Add the turkey stock and combine. Stir for a several minutes until thickened. It will start out shockingly thin, but it thickens quickly.

I'm used to having soy sauce in my gravy because Mom always made it that way, so I add that too, several ounces.

Cooled, then vacuum sealed and froze 6x servings of 5.0 oz. each.

Dressing

I used Pepperidge Farm classic stuffing mix, what Mom used, but added several things. It's really more like the package directions than the recipe I made in previous years, though actually probably the closest to Mom's recipe (though she did not add sausage).

Cook the sausage in a sauté pan.

Add the butter, onions, and celery and cook until slightly softened.

Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil.

Add the stuffing mix and transfer to a 9x12 Pyrex baking dish.

Bake 45 minutes uncovered at 350°F.

Divided into 6 dinner servings (around 2.1 oz. each) and a leftover serving.

Green bean casserole

Prepped a traditional green bean casserole, based on this recipe. I made a half recipe.

Combine the ingredients except the fried onions in a bowl.

Spray a 5x9 Pyrex loaf pan with oil, add the green bean mixtures.

Bake for 45 minutes at 350°F uncovered, adding the fried onions during the last 10 minutes of cooking.

Divided into 6 servings of around 2.0 oz. each, vacuum sealed and frozen.

Cranberry sauce

I made the Food Network cranberry sauce recipe . It's basically just a 12 oz. bag of fresh cranberries, 1 cup of sugar, a strip of lemon zest, and 1 oz. water. I like it.

Add the cranberries, 1 cup of sugar, lemon zest and water to a sauce pan and heat over low heat, stirring occasionally until the sugar dissolves, about 10 minutes.

Increase the heat to medium and cook until the cranberries burst, about 12 minutes, then continue to cook until it reaches the desired consistency.

Season with salt and pepper.

The original recipe calls for adding some reserved uncooked cranberries at the end, but I like it better without.

Divided into 6 dinner servings and a little left over.

Turkey stock and soup

There were too many bones to fit in the Instant Pot, and making 64 oz. is kind of beyond the limits of the 6 quart pot. I split the prep into two batches.

In the instant pot:

Cook on the soup setting. When done, let cool for 20 minutes, then release the pressure.

Cooled down in the sink with ice water.

Ready to go into the refrigerator, then skim off the foam and fat.

Meat picked off the bone. Bones and vegetable discarded. Stock to a container to chill so the fat can be skimmed off.

3x 12 oz. stock and a separate packages of 2.5 oz. meat for turkey soup.

1x 16 oz. stock for gravy next year (will add one more from the second batch)

Turkey stock (2nd batch)

I vacuum sealed and froze 20 oz. of bones and 1 wing for the second batch, which I did not make right away.

There won't be much meat left in this batch and any remainder and bones can be discarded.

Meal prep

I made 6x full dinner servings with:

Each set goes into a zip-lock bag to make it easy to get out of the freeze for an easy meal.

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