I made an entire Thanksgiving dinner using only Ina Garten recipes, and most dishes were simple and delicious (2024)

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The ingredients were surprisingly easy to find.

Before I went shopping for the recipe ingredients, I made an offhand comment to my husband about how I'd probably have to go to five different stores to gather up all of the ingredients.

To my surprise, I found all the groceries I needed at Walmart — only one trip required.

Fresh green beans, elbow macaroni, and goat cheese were on the ingredient list, which felt fresh, simple, and easy to acquire.

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I started cooking the day before and knocked out the apple pie first.

Garten's deep-dish apple pie was to be our dessert, so I made it a day in advance to save time on the big day.

The recipe called for lots of citrus zest, but it was simple to get the amount of orange and lemon zest needed with my microplane grater.

I am pretty die-hard about following recipes, but I cheated a little on this one by using a store-bought pie crust rather than making my own. I was glad I did, as the meal was plenty of work without making homemade pastry crust.

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Next up was the cranberry sauce.

I prepped Garten's make-ahead cranberry sauce the day before, too.

I've made cranberry sauce from scratch before, but I prefer the canned variety, so I was curious how Garten's would stack up.

The recipe called for tart Granny Smith apples and lots of citrus zest, which made for a great deal of grating and chopping.

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The stuffing was also easy to make in advance.

Garten's sausage-and-herb stuffing was next on my to-do list. I prepped this a day ahead of time as well.

It was easy to brown sausage, cook down ingredients such as apples and onions, and mix everything in a pan with toasted bread pieces. Another straightforward and simple recipe, the stuffing came together easily and was a breeze to make.

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Garten puts goat cheese in her mashed potatoes — a first for me.

Day one of cooking also involved making Garten's goat-cheese mashed potatoes.

Since the mashed-potato recipe was full of creamy butter and milk, adding goat cheese seemed odd to me, but who am I to argue with Ina?

I prepped the entire recipe in advance, whipping my potatoes with a hand mixer. Then, I loaded the cheesy mixture into a baking pan and topped it with butter and Parmesan cheese.

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Another unique Garten twist? Tomato-topped mac and cheese.

My kids would riot if mac and cheese was not part of our Thanksgiving meal, so I chose a recipe that involved a fresh tomato topping to mix up our normal side.

In addition to topping the Gruyere-and-cheddar-based mac and cheese with fresh tomatoes, the recipe also called for a fresh breadcrumb topping.

I'd never made fresh breadcrumbs before but quickly learned it's super-easy and only requires one to put fresh slices of bread into a food processor and pulse.

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With day one of prep work complete, I enlisted the help of a favorite Thanksgiving hack.

One of my favorite ways to keep things organized while cooking a big dinner such as Thanksgiving is to cover each pre-assembled dish with aluminum foil and write the cooking time and temperature on top with a permanent marker.

That way, when it's time to cook, I can easily plan what needs to go into the oven at which time and I won't be searching for the recipes again to find the information.

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On the big day, I started with green beans.

Garten's green-beans gremolata recipe is a big jump from my normal casserole, but I was excited to try a fresher, less creamy approach to the vegetable side.

Like a lot of Garten's Thanksgiving recipes, the gremolata required lots of citrus zest, along with pine nuts, fresh herbs, and Parmesan.

After blanching the green beans and tossing them into an ice bath, I set them aside for go-time, when they'd be sautéed and tossed with the gremolata before serving.

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The last item to prep was the bird itself.

In recent years, my husband and I have spatchco*cked our turkey, a technique where you open the bird up, remove the backbone, and lay it flat for cooking.

We were a bit hesitant to try Garten's oven-roast turkey, as it was a way more traditional approach. After prepping the bird and stuffing it with goodies such as garlic, herbs, onion, and lemon, we popped it into our oven and hoped for the best.

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When everything was cooked and ready, I was really proud of the meal I'd created.

Although Garten's Thanksgiving dinner didn't look like my normal one, it was stunning when everything came out of the oven and was laid out on my kitchen island.

Everything looked delicious and elegant and I immediately thought it was one of the most beautiful meals I'd made in my life. I spent about 10 hours in the kitchen in total prepping our Thanksgiving menu, and when I saw everything put together, I knew the time was well worth it.

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The turkey turned out beautifully, but I'd probably stick with spatchco*cking.

Aesthetically, Garten's oven-roast turkey was beautiful. It looked like something out of a movie scene where the family gathers around the table, ready to carve the bird and dig in.

Still, I find the spatchco*cking method to allow for better planning on cooking time, as with the bird laid flat, it's easier to predict how long it'll take to reach the correct internal temperature.

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The cranberry sauce was a little fancy for my taste.

I'm a canned cranberry sauce girl through and through.

Garten's recipe was the most involved cranberry sauce I've ever made from scratch with its citrus zest and chopped apples. For the amount of work it took, I don't know that it was worth it.

It was a bit tart, and in the future, I'd stick with canned cranberry sauce.

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Although I'll keep making my casserole for Thanksgiving, I'd cook Garten's green beans again.

I'm a big fan of traditional green-bean casserole made with cream-of-mushroom soup and crispy onions.

Garten's green-beans gremolata was a different dish entirely — fresh and citrusy instead of creamy and full of umami, but it was delicious.

I'd definitely make the side again, just not on Thanksgiving.

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Garten's tomato-topped mac and cheese reminded us of grilled cheese and tomato soup.

I wasn't sure about topping mac and cheese with fresh tomatoes, but it totally worked.

The homemade breadcrumbs and elbow macaroni provided enough carbs that, when combined with cheese and tomato, it gave everyone at my dinner table grilled-cheese-and-tomato-soup vibes.

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The goat cheese in the mashed potatoes changed the flavors of a classic.

Don't get me wrong, I loved Garten's goat cheesy mashed potatoes, but adding an ingredient as creamy and tangy as goat cheese definitely changed the flavor profile.

These were not your classic mashed potatoes but were instead a more creamy mash with pungent notes from the goat cheese.

Although they didn't scream "Thanksgiving" to me, I would make them again as a side dish for a different meal.

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Garten's stuffing converted me into a stuffing girl.

I've never been into stuffing, as it's always seemed to lack in flavor and take up valuable real estate in my stomach that I'd rather fill with the aforementioned green-bean casserole.

Garten's stuffing recipe, however, made me a convert.

The savoriness of the sausage and herbs combined with the tartness of the apples was perfection and I loved the freshly-made toasted cubes of bread we'd prepped the day before.

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The deep-dish apple pie was a hit with my guests.

Everyone thoroughly enjoyed Garten's deep-dish apple pie, so much so that it was the only menu item we didn't have leftovers of.

Made with tart Granny Smith apples, the pie was the perfect balance of sweet and tangy, combined with a crispy crust. We served each slice with a scoop of vanilla-bean ice cream, the perfect accompaniment.

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Weeks later, I'm still proud of the meal I created.

Going on a 10-hour adventure through some of Garten's most iconic recipes was a lot of fun. Looking back, I'm still proud of my hard work and the beautiful menu I served my guests as a result.

I spent $132.77 on ingredients, which felt like a solid deal considering I was able to feed a dozen people, with leftovers. My usual Thanksgiving meals typically cost me more to prepare.

But cooking Thanksgiving dinner is no joke, so since I cooked a full one in October (which we dubbed Spooky Friendsgiving), I told my family we were going out for Thanksgiving dinner this year.