20 Best Thanksgiving Salad Recipes

Brighten your holiday table with these Thanksgiving salad recipes! With grain salads, green salads, and more, you're sure to find one you love.

By now, you probably have a good idea of your Thanksgiving menu. Maybe you’re sticking to classics like turkey, sweet potato casserole, and cranberry sauce, or maybe you’re trying something new. Mashed cauliflower? Mac and cheese? No matter what you’re serving, I hope you’re including a Thanksgiving salad. Why? For one, color! If you’ve been following Love & Lemons for a while, you know that I love highlighting the colors of every season. In the fall, so much colorful produce is at its peak, but it doesn’t always make its way onto our Thanksgiving tables, where mashed potatoes and gravy take…

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40 Vegan Thanksgiving Recipes

These vegan Thanksgiving recipes include entrees, side dishes, desserts, and more - everything you need to make a plant-based holiday feast!

dinner / side dishes / desserts

Every year, I hear from readers asking for vegan Thanksgiving recipes. I always write back with an idea or two, but I never quite feel like my response is enough. I think one of the most joyous things about Thanksgiving is crafting a menu that you and your friends or family will love. So instead of sending a couple suggestions to each person who writes in, I wanted to create a whole collection of vegan Thanksgiving recipes for you to explore. And finally, it’s here! Below, you’ll find over forty of my best vegan Thanksgiving recipes. They include everything you…

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Green Bean Salad

This green bean salad recipe is super easy to make, but it's still delicious and complex. It's perfect for the holidays or dinner any night of the week!

fall / salads

I am so excited to share this green bean salad recipe with all of you! I first made it way back in the summer, on a day when I had a gorgeous bag of string beans in the fridge. They were long, slender, sweet, and snappy, and I knew I had to find a special way to use them. Each year, I enjoy green beans throughout the summer and fall. But no matter what season it is or what dish I’m making, they always remind me of Thanksgiving and my family’s classic green bean casserole. So as I pondered how…

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How to Cook Fresh Green Beans

Learn how to cook fresh green beans perfectly every time! Serve them as a side dish, or add them to your favorite green bean recipes.

cooking basics

Nearly all of my fresh green bean recipes begin with blanching the beans. If you ask me, everyone should learn this method for how to cook green beans. It’s quick and easy, and it yields beans that are vibrant, crisp-tender, and not at all mushy. They’re perfect for serving as a side dish or adding to salads and sandwiches. Heck, they even make a great green bean casserole! Below, you’ll find a step-by-step guide to how to cook fresh green beans, as well as my favorite green bean recipes. They include ideas for Thanksgiving, summer picnics, and dinners all year…

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Stuffed Acorn Squash

This stuffed acorn squash recipe is perfect for the holidays! Sage and rosemary add earthy flavor to its hearty tempeh and mushroom filling.

fall

When people ask me what to serve as a vegetarian main dish at Thanksgiving, I always reply, “Stuffed acorn squash!” I love putting seasonal produce at the center of my plate whenever I can, and Thanksgiving dinner is no exception. Acorn squash presents us with a unique opportunity. After you scoop out the seeds, the squash halves form natural bowls. You could leave them empty, roast the squash, and serve it as a side dish. But you could also load the squash with a flavorful filling after it comes out of the oven. In an instant, it’ll transform from a…

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How to Cut a Pomegranate

Learn how to cut a pomegranate like a pro! Plus, find delicious pomegranate recipes to showcase this vibrant, juicy, feel-good fruit.

fall

Who else loves pomegranates?! As soon as these vibrant, ruby red fruits appear at the grocery store each fall, Jack and I start eating them like crazy. We can’t get enough of their sweet/tart flavor and their juicy, bursty texture. I sprinkle the seeds over desserts, salads, and even dips, while Jack eats them by the spoonful as a snack! But…how do you cut a pomegranate fruit, anyway? If you’re asking that question right now, you’re not alone. Learning how to cut a pomegranate can seem intimidating, and done the wrong way, it can be a huge mess. Not to…

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Cranberry Sauce

Scented with orange and sweetened with maple, this cranberry sauce recipe is a delicious version of the Thanksgiving classic. Great for making ahead!

fall / side dishes

Meet my best cranberry sauce recipe! This homemade cranberry sauce is easy to make with 5 simple ingredients. It’s thick, tart, and jammy, and maple syrup and orange zest give it wonderful depth of flavor. It’s the perfect addition to a Thanksgiving table, but it’s so delicious that I’d happily eat it at any time of year. If you’ve never tried homemade cranberry sauce before, I hope you’ll make this recipe. I grew up eating the kind from the can, so you can trust me when I tell you that this fresh cranberry sauce is SO much better. Since I…

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Mashed Cauliflower

This creamy mashed cauliflower recipe is an easy, delicious low carb side dish! Roasted garlic and a little butter fill it with rich, nutty flavor.

fall / side dishes

When I asked Jack to taste this mashed cauliflower recipe, I told him it was mashed potatoes. Call me cruel, but I wanted his honest opinion. He loves mashed potatoes more than anyone I know! He wasn’t completely fooled (“I was standing next to you when you bought the cauliflower…”), but he did happily enjoy bite after bite. Since then, he’s devoured several bowls of this mashed cauliflower and accidentally called it “mashed potatoes” more than once. I’ll take it! In the past, I’ve made cauliflower mashed potatoes with a mix of potatoes and cauliflower. But this year, I decided…

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Roasted Garlic

Making mashed potatoes, a sauce, or soup? Roasted garlic will infuse it with rich, nutty flavor. Find my easy method for how to roast garlic below!

cooking basics

Have you ever roasted garlic in the oven? As it cooks, your kitchen fills with an amazing savory scent. It’s the kind of mouthwatering aroma that’s guaranteed to make you hungry, even if you’ve just finished lunch. If you ask me, this smell alone is enough reason to learn how to roast garlic at home. But of course, the main reason to make roasted garlic is the taste. Unlike raw garlic, roasted garlic doesn’t have any sort of bite. Its flavor is sweet, mellow, nutty, and rich. It also softens as it roasts, becoming tender, creamy, and spreadable. Blend it…

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Creamy Butternut Squash Pasta

This butternut squash pasta is healthy, comforting, and delicious! Roasted squash, sage, and thyme fill the creamy sauce with cozy autumn flavor.

fall / dinner

The first time I made this butternut squash pasta sauce, Jack couldn’t stop talking about it for days. “That sauce!”, he kept saying. “That sauce!” Of course, I teased him for it, but if I’m being totally honest, I was completely smitten with it too. Looking at this butternut squash pasta, you might expect it to taste like mac and cheese. But don’t be fooled. The creamy sauce is rich and nutty, with bold autumn flavor from herbs like sage and thyme. Because it’s so flavorful and complex, this butternut squash pasta would make a show-stopping vegetarian main dish at a special…

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Pumpkin Bars

These easy pumpkin bars are super moist, perfectly spiced, and slathered in tangy cream cheese frosting. What more could you want in a fall treat?

vegan / fall

If you’re looking for a fun, festive, and sweet-but-not-too-sweet treat to make for Halloween, this easy pumpkin bars recipe is just the thing for you! It’s based on the pumpkin bread recipe that I make every fall. Like the bread, these bars are moist, tender, and filled with pumpkin spice flavor. UNlike the bread, they’re topped in a rich, tangy cream cheese frosting, which really highlights the warm spices inside them. On cool fall afternoons, they’re the perfect treat to pair with a coffee or tea. But heads up: these pumpkin bars are seriously addictive. Eat one, and you’ll have…

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Hello, we're Jeanine and Jack.