How to Plan Thanksgiving Dinner (with free printables!)

Since most of our family lives in Oregon, we usually decide to go there for Christmas and stay here in Montana for Thanksgiving. This means that for the past several years I have gotten the pleasure of planning and hosting Thanksgiving dinner (mostly) by myself.

Don’t get me wrong–I love having our family visit and preparing a special holiday meal for them! But it CAN be overwhelming and intimidating planning for and preparing all of that food at once!

Here are the exact steps that I take to make planning Thanksgiving dinner less stressful. I have also included the free printables that you see pictured, at the bottom of this post.

Step 1: Create list of dishes to make

Use the “Thanksgiving Dinner Recipes” page and list all of the dishes that you want to make in each category.

Tips and free printables for planning Thanksgiving dinner.

Step 2: Find recipes

Look through your cookbooks and on Pinterest for recipes for each of the dishes that you would like to make. Bookmark any recipes in cookbooks and print off any recipes that you find online. It is SO much easier to have hard copies when you are cooking that many recipes.

Here are a few recipes that I have used and loved:

Maple Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Bacon

Crockpot Turkey Breast (GREAT for small gatherings!)

Creamy Mashed Potatoes

Dutch Apple Pie

Creamy Two Layer Pumpkin Pie

Step 3: Grocery List

Now that you have all of your recipes in front of you, it is time to make your huge grocery list! Go through one recipe at a time and list the ingredients on the “Thanksgiving Shopping List” printable. Many ingredients will be in more than one recipe; I use tally marks as I go to keep track of how many I need to purchase.

Don’t forget items like napkins, foil, parchment paper, etc and make sure to double and triple check your list!

Step 4: Grocery Shop

I usually make two trips to the grocery store. The first trip is for nonperishable items about a week before Thanksgiving. A few days before Thanksgiving I get the remaining groceries which is usually produce. That way I don’t have to be in the crazy grocery store any longer than needed close to the holiday!

Step 5: Make a cooking schedule

Use the “Thanksgiving Dinner Timeline” to plan when you are going to cook each recipe. Make as much as you can the day before and prep what you can’t cook ahead of time. Chopping and peeling vegetables the night before can save you a ton of time on the day of!

Set a goal time for dinner and work backwards to create a rough schedule of when each recipe needs to be put in the oven.