What are the best salads for Thanksgiving? On beautiful occasions such as Thanksgiving, maybe you are sticking to classics like cranberry sauce and sweet potato casserole. Or perhaps you are trying to get something new like mac and cheese and mashed cauliflower.
The best salads for Thanksgiving are those that go well with your turkey dinner and fit well within the Thanksgiving mood at your home. Nowadays, you can easily add vegetables, greens, fruits, berries, nuts, and other favorite ingredients to your Thanksgiving salad. Most importantly, thanksgiving salads should not interfere with or diminish the taste of traditional turkey and mashed potatoes.
Irrespective of everything you include in the serving options, let us hope that you will consist of a salad for Thanksgiving, and there are good reasons to have it on the table!
Do you Serve Salads on Thanksgiving?
I do. Do you? If not, then you should start adding salads to your thanksgiving dinner. Along with turkey, fulfilling sides such as mashed potatoes bestow all the grandeur associated with Thanksgiving. Still, everyone knows that a great holiday meal would be all about having the right balance with varieties of salads as sides.
Also, thanksgiving salads are pleasing ways of adding up colors to the holiday plates. Who would not appreciate some bites of anything refreshing and light between stuffing and forkfuls?
What salad to make for Thanksgiving?
A perfect thanksgiving salad must be a healthy balance of taste and the freshness it stores for a long time. It must not beat the flavor of the main dish – turkey. There is no specific side thanksgiving salad you can go with as all would depend on the ingredients’ flavors and taste. All salads for Thanksgiving are simple to prepare deliciously, and attendees love adding any of these to their plates.
Note: We would avoid salads with meats for Thanksgiving salad, as those will compete with thanksgiving turkey. I also would not have a salad with traditional mashed potatoes for the mentioned reason. I would go with plenty of vegetables and greens, fruits, and a few sweets.
Going with something sour like soft cheese may well fit the thanksgiving dinner as it helps digestion. But I digress.
You can try a few favorite thanksgiving recipes as we would like to introduce some of the tastiest and healthiest sides that you try every Thanksgiving. And they are simplified for easy making.
Below are a few favorite thanksgiving salad recipes for Thanksgiving below. A few of these can be tossed together quite easily and quickly before the meal. Others also include roasted grains or vegetables to get additional depth and texture of flavor. All these are delicious and colorful. With all such delightful options, you will surely pick a favorite.
If you have loved the traditional styled thanksgiving flavors and foods, all these three recipes fit well in the holiday menu!
What is a good salad to go with Thanksgiving dinner?
There are many good salads to make for Thanksgiving. But here, we will lay out a few relatively simple ones to make. Below, I simplify some known receipts to make those salads easier to make for everyone.
Note: many good thanksgiving salad recipes traditionally include apples and pears – fruits that usually blossom closer to fall. Also, you may often find squashes in thanksgiving recipes for the same traditional reason – squashes mature closer to fall.
Plus, squashes and apples are good for helping to digest that turkey and mashed potato main entries. Lemon juice helps too. And olive oil, of course. A good salad should include various main ingredients, plus some cheese, a few berries or fruits, and seasonings.
1. Cider Dressing Pomegranate/Grape Salad
While thinking of a nice salad for Thanksgiving, this is the quick recipe that comes to mind and is recommended by many other bloggers. This boasts of fall produce cornucopia – apples, pomegranates, carrots, roasted or baked squash, and a lot more! You could also add pears and grapes to the mix.
Start with squash. Wash the squash. You can bake whole squash for 30-50 minutes at 350 to 400 degrees F. You can bake the entire squash and then cut it afterward.
Or you can cut the squash into pieces before baking, and then smaller pieces will bake a little faster and more thoroughly. You can mix baked pieces with some extra virgin olive oil.
Add chunks of pomegranates. Do you not like pomegranates or their seeds? Well, replace them with red or dark grapes. Different salad but will do the trick!
Adding cheese can result in extra beauty with tangy apple cider tying all of it. While bloggers recommend Halloumi cheese, any hard or semi-hard cheese would do – from mozzarella or jack to cheddar, Italian, or swiss. Cut them into small cube pieces before mixing them in.
Cut apples and carrots into small pieces and mix them in too. You can add any dressing that you like here.
You can add soft cheese like feta or goat cheese and mix it in.
You can add chopped green salad leaves and chopped onions. All this depending on your time and desire to make this salad more complicated.
And mix all with sprinkling apple cider all over it. You can add either sweet syrup on top of it or mustard. I would not do both at the same time. Each will change the flavor and theme of the salad.
If you use onions, mustard would fit better if you do not use onions, then sweet maple syrup will fit right in. Like honey dressing better? You are the boss here.
This salad makes stunning centerpieces for the Thanksgiving table!
2. Kohlrabi Thanksgiving salad
The refreshing and crisp salad gets more sweetness with apples. You have a minimum time for assembling, so tossing it together is simple, and you can have it right before eating.
You can steam kohlrabi for 12 minutes, or roast for 40-50 minutes, or stir-fry for 6-7 minutes. Chip it up into pieces, as tiny as possible: Ise food processor, chef’s knife, or mandoline.
Cut apple skin and cut small apple pieces and mix those with kohlrabi pieces.
Add chopped walnuts, dried cranberries, parsley, or other greens to your liking.
You can add some sweet jam on it or to it. See how that works. Some say honey, but I do not like honey in this salad.
That was easy, was not it?
3. Blue Cheese, Fig and Apple Salad
With blue cheese and crisp autumn apples, topped with balsamic dressing and sweet fig, the salad can make a festive first course at the holiday dinner. For example, the Danish blue and Gorgonzola go well, but you can easily add up your favorite type of blue cheese.
This salad is a fine addition in the fall season, which is apple’s peak season. You can use fuji, opal, or gala apples. Sweet works fine with creamy cheese. For nut-related allergies, you can replace nuts with sunflower seeds or pepitas. The preparation and serving time is only roughly 10 minutes.
So, bloggers recommend purchasing and using fig jam for this. You can buy it either in a big grocery store or online. Fig jam removes the whole process of preparing figs here.
Note: frankly, you can use other jam instead, and then call this salad something other than fig salad.
2-3 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
2-3 tablespoons of olive oil
One teaspoon of mustard
One tablespoon of fig jam or other jam
One teaspoon of salt, I always prefer kosher or sea salt
½ teaspoon pepper if you want. I avoid mixing pepper and sweets to avoid confusing my sense of taste.
You can add ½ cup of pine or other soft nuts (cashews, maybe). You can roast them slightly in a dry pan over medium heat until they get brownish or golden color.
½ cup to 1 cup sliced apples.
½ cup crumbled blue cheese, or 1 cup if you are an avid cheese lover. You can experiment with feta or goat cheese, too – any soft cheese of such kind.
One glove of garlic is optional.
Few ounces of salad greens.
There you have it – enjoy!
Want something even more simple? The following two salads should be simple thanksgiving salads to make.
4. Salad with Sweet Potato Among the Best Salads for Thanksgiving
The sweet potato thanksgiving salad can combine well with a few favorite fall ingredients: The feta, roasted or boiled sweet potatoes, crunchy chips, tahini dressing, avocado, etc. All this should be added to the holiday table, and all of it quickly dissolves.
Note that sweet potato is different from regular potato dishes on Thanksgiving. Hence, I include this here.
Usually, this thanksgiving salad comes with roasted sweet potatoes. But I like the boiled version. Sweet potatoes are just retaining flavor better and are softer to eat when you boil it, in my opinion.
Take sweet potatoes, remove all skin, cut into round slices. Then slice cut each into several pieces. Or you can use some other way to cut it into pieces if you want – food processor, chef’s knife, or mandoline. For example, cut into cubes.
Boiling:
Take a pot with water. You can add salt (I like kosher or sea salt). Bring it to a boil. Add cut pieces of sweet potato to the water. Let it reach boiling again.
Reduce to medium-high or medium and keep boiling for 15-25 minutes or until tender. Ensure they are cooked through by sticking a fork through the center into the other side or pieces.
Roasting:
Pre-heat oven at 400-425 F Degrees. Spread pieces of sweet potato on a baking sheet. Roast until bottom side just slightly browns. Then carefully flip pieces with a spatula and roast until another side gets browned.
Then flip them a few times more over the rest of the roasting time. Make sure pieces are soft and tender when cooked. It will take about 40 minutes in total.
Cut one red or white onion into small pieces and mix it in with slices of sweet potato.
Add one tablespoon of olive oil and mix it in.
Now cut about ½ or 1 pound of feta cheese. Cut it also into small pieces or cubes and mix them in now.
If you want, you can add chips here. If you mix hard so that the salad becomes mushy, you can use chips to dip and eat it. We had done it a few times with roommates when I was in college – cooking, mixing, and using chips to eat.
You can also cut pieces of green leafy vegetables like romaine or other lettuce and add them in.
Now clear avocado skin and cut the avocado into pieces, and add them in gently.
On top of it, you can add either honey dressing, tahini dressing, or other dressing per your taste.
There you go – you have a sweet potato with avocado salad.
5. Green Bean Salad
The green bean salad is among the best available flavor combinations: Dijon mustard + tarragon + green beans. Thus, it is a delicious and fresh alternative to the classic side green bean casserole.
Get about 1 pound or more of fresh green beans.
Boil water in the pot. Add a little bit of salt and pepper to the boiling water. Then add rinsed green beans and boil them a little bit – about 4-5 minutes. They must remain firm and crunchy, do not boil them to the state of softness.
While beans are boiling, in another bowl, mix 1-2 tablespoons of Dijon mustard, a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar, several tablespoons of fresh green tarragon, and 1-3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. You can also add ½ teaspoon of salt and ½ teaspoon of pepper.
Now take the beans from the stove and drain them in a colander. You can play here. You can chop slightly boiled beans and add them to the mix. Or you can throw cooked beans in the mix. Make sure beans are mixed well in that substance you made in a mixing bowl.
Here you have another simple salad!
6. Brussels Sprouts Shredded Salad With Cranberries
This thanksgiving salad also should not be too complicated. The healthy side can be added to the Thanksgiving dinner menu every year. You only require several ingredients to make the side dish, and it is pretty easy to make and refreshing. The dish perfectly contrasts with the conventional other sides in Thanksgiving, such as gravies and mashed potatoes.
You can eat raw Brussel sprouts as they are from the same family as ordinary cabbage.
Get about 1 – 1 ½ pounds of Brussel sprouts. Note that once you cut them, you will have less than that to put in a salad. You may need two or more pounds if you want to make a large bowl of this salad.
Wash them well, remove rotten leaves. Cut off bad sides, if any. Next, shred sprouts in a decent food processor or chop them very well with a good chef’s knife.
Cutting Brussel sprouts for thanksgiving salad (or any salad) will take a little bit of time if you do it with the knife. Good kitchen tools make life easier.
Now that you have sprouted as the base for a salad, here is a complete list of ingredients, but you can make it simpler.
- Apples ¼-½ pounds, or 1-2 large apples
- dried cranberries ½ cup
- sunflower seeds ½ cup
- Parmesan cheese ½ pound
- maple mustard dressing
- extra virgin olive oil ¼ cup
- lemon juice one tablespoon
- Dijon mustard one teaspoon
- apple side vinegar 1-2 tablespoons
- One clove of garlic (minced)
For this salad, you do not have to boil or fry anything. Everything here can be eaten fresh, making it easier to make. Since shredded sprouts can last fine for 1-2 hours, you now can leave them aside and take care of the rest of the ingredients or other thanksgiving dishes.
Just clear all leaves, skin from apples, shred everything well with a food processor or chef’s knife. Mix. Then add olive oil, lemon juice, mustard and mix them in well. Then add dressing on top of it.
You made it! Enjoy fresh salad!
7. Shredded Brussel Sprouts with Quinoa salad
Now, this is going to be the most straightforward thanksgiving salad to explain. Just cook the quinoa according to instructions on the package. Add mix cooked quinoa with the shredded sprout base you made above. Then add the rest as explained above.
8. Citrus Cabbage Salad – Another Easy One From the Best Salads for Thanksgiving
The salad is a crunchy addition, and the colorful salad works better when it rests. Thus, this is great to add a side dish for Thanksgiving. You can toss up all crisp veggies along with dressing well in advance. Later one, you can top it with herbs, avocado, clementine along with seeds at the last minute.
With apples, you bring sweetness to the refreshing and crisp autumn slaw. With it, you get time for assembling, so it becomes easy to toss together before eating.
You will need for 1-3 people:
Cabbage ½-1 pounds
Radishes ½-1 pounds
Carrots ½-1 pounds
Clementine (at least 1/2 pounds) or oranges 1-3
Avocado – 1-2
Lemon or lime juice – per your liking – at least 2-3 tablespoons
Extra virgin olive oil 2-3 tablespoons
Sunflower seeds 1/3 cup (optional)
1-2 minced garlic gloves
Shred cabbage with a food processor, chef’s knife, or mandolin. Slice radishes and carrots. Slice avocado and add pieces to the mix. Pour in sunflower seeds all over. Throw garlic all over. Mix it all well in a bowl, adding each ingredient one by one with shredded cabbage.
Add olive oil, pour lemon or lime juice, and remix everything.
Now some people add cilantro; some add honey dressing to match the sweetness of citrus fruits. It is up to you. Frankly, salad is one of those dishes that are limited only by your imagination and food intolerance.
In any case, you have made another thanksgiving salad.
Other standard thanksgiving salads
Below are a few more best salads for Thanksgiving. I will not indulge in recipes as there are millions of recipes for these.
9. Caesar Salad is Also Among the Best Salads for Thanksgiving
The traditional preparation is generally available with egg yolks and garlic with anchovy, and it is excellent for accompanying holiday meals. Make sure to have dressing immediately before serving it to avoid separating and dressing salad before serving it to avoid soggy lettuce.
The dressing can also be mixed with hands, but blenders also work great for saving on time. Be careful while salting dressing as both Parmesan cheese and anchovies have got tons of salt.
You can make crispy croutons before you serve. Grilled shrimp can be added for a fancy salad course. Cook and prep time is 30 minutes.
10. Rice Pomegranate Salad
The red Ruby pomegranate seeds result in bright color pop with tart/sweet flavor to the delicious rice salad. This salad must be made with long-grained rice that you would want to have – brown rice, white rice, along with wild rice, all go well for the dish.
11. Buckwheat, Cranberry, Avocado, and Apple Salad
The simple salad is bright, healthy, and hearty. The good news here is! Despite the name, the buckwheat gets gluten-free.
All you need to do is to cook buckwheat, add apples as described in previous recipes above. Then add ½ cup cranberries and 1-2 sliced avocados, depending on how much salad you make.
12. Walnuts and Balsamic Vinegar with Pear Salad
The simple to prepare salad is quite a fresh one and is simple around the Thanksgiving menu. The recipe looks delicious with the way good hard Italian cheese contrasts with dried cranberries and sweet pears.
Pears you prepare just like apples – wash them, cut off the skin, slice them. Walnuts should be chopped well. You can add lemon juice if you like it to soup, honey, or maple dressing if you want it sweet.
There are More Favorite Recipes for Best Salads for Thanksgiving
While you are searching for recipe inspiration for your holiday, you can try including all these salads as sides for the occasion, and what else would be better than having varieties to choose from. All these salads are simple to prepare and are perfect for the season and the occasion!
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