Tips for Cooking a Vegetarian Thanksgiving Dinner

(406 Words)
A vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner can be a special way to celebrate this popular holiday. Pay heed to the following tips when making such a meal.
Decide on one or more main dishes
Some people equate vegetarian with side dishes or salads, but this is far from true. There are many main dishes that do not contain meat, and for a Thanksgiving dinner you will want to be sure to include one. Some people want to make something that they feel represents a turkey. For instance, they may get a meat substitute such as Tofurky or they will actually make a tofu turkey into the shape of a turkey. However, you can also have a completely different main dish. Think about what your guests like. It could be a spinach and cheese quiche, a casserole, a pasta dish like vegetarian lasagna, a rice dish or anything you enjoy. There are no rules. You can also have several different main dishes because a lot of people do not like tofu, and that includes vegetarians.
Have a lot of the traditional side dishes
Many of the traditional side dishes for Thanksgiving are vegetarian or can be easily made as such. For instance, you can find many vegetarian stuffing recipes. You can also make sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, etc. You can make soup with a vegetable base. You can have pumpkin pie. Remember that most vegetarians will eat milk and other dairy products if they are not vegan.
You want to make sure that meat does not sneak into your vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner without you realizing it. For instance, if you make mashed sweet potatoes and usually put marshmallows on it, then you will need to switch to marshmallow cream since regular marshmallows have non-vegetarian gelatin in them. If you make stuffing, obviously do not cook it in an animal stock and do not use a meat or chicken stock in any of your recipes.
You can tap into many places in order to attain recipes for your vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner. For instance, you could get Celebrations: Festive Menus for Holidays & Other Special Occasions by Nava Atlas or Times Complete Thanksgiving Cookbook. You can also look at the vegetarian section of a recipe website such as www.allrecipes.com.
A vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner can be very special and be a way to truly feel at peace with both humans and animals. The above tips can help you prepare your meal.