This cranberry sauce recipe is sweet, tart and bursting with fresh orange flavor! Made with whole cranberries, orange juice, brown sugar and warm spices, it comes together in just 15 minutes of prep and cooking. It’s an easy, homemade Thanksgiving side dish that you can make ahead of time, so there’s one less thing to worry about on the big day!

I grew up thinking I didn’t like cranberry sauce. My dad loved the canned stuff, and every Thanksgiving my mom would open a can just for him. The rest of us? No thank you!

Then one day, I had a leftover turkey sandwich at a little sandwich shop, and everything changed. That sweet and tart cranberry sauce with the turkey?! I finally understood what I’d been missing!

Now, homemade cranberry sauce is a must-have at our Thanksgiving table. And trust me, once you try it with fresh orange juice and a little brown sugar, you might never go back to the canned stuff!

All the secrets to Crispy Bacon Wrapped Green Beans that stay crisp, bright green and don’t fall apart! Fresh green beans wrapped in smoky bacon and roasted with a buttery brown sugar glaze until the bacon is crisp and caramelized is an easy side dish is the vegetable dish that’s simple enough for a weeknight but special enough for the holidays.

These are the brown sugar bacon wrapped green beans for people who don’t want another green bean casserole and who are asking, How do I make my kids actually eat green beans? Grayson HATED them, until this recipe. 😉

Seriously, this is The green bean recipe for people who don’t think they like green beans. They might just be the first side dish to disappear from your table!

That’s right, our testing led to a few secrets that transformed this VIRAL side dish recipe! So, Yes, this is spectacular on Thanksgiving—but don’t save it for the holidays! Make them all year round.

I don’t even care about anything anymore because these are probably the only green beans I’ll ever make again…melt-in-your-mouth brown sugar bacon wrapped green beans. Hello green beans, you’re going to be delicious.

The easiest way to turn green beans into the side dish everyone fights over.

Here’s exactly how to get tender green beans and crispy bacon at the same time.

Before we decided on the final ingredient list I tested:

Version A

Raw bacon + blanched green beans

Version B

Par-cooked bacon + blanched green beans

Version C

Raw bacon + raw green beans

We had to determine:

• Which gives the crispiest bacon?
• Which bacon is best?
• Which green bean is best?
• Which gives the best green bean texture?
• Which requires the least work?
• How to hold together best?
• Which tastes best after sitting for 10–15 minutes?

The Worst Results?

Don’t even get me started on Version C. It’s a total waste of your time.

This crockpot stuffing recipe takes a simple boxed stuffing mix and turns it into something that tastes completely homemade. Savory sausage, buttery sautéed onion and celery, rich broth, milk and egg make it moist, flavorful and worthy of the Thanksgiving table—all without taking up precious oven space.

This is basically the ultimate doctored-up boxed stuffing: all the ease of a shortcut with the rich, savory flavor of homemade. Browning the sausage and sautéing the vegetables in butter before they hit the slow cooker makes all the difference. Then everything cooks low and slow while you focus on the turkey, rolls and everything else fighting for oven space.

Ingredients You’ll Need

This stuffing comes together with simple, familiar ingredients that work together to create something special.

• Ground sausage: Adds savory flavor, richness and plenty of seasoning. We love it for making boxed stuffing taste homemade.
• Celery: Adds a little texture and that classic savory stuffing flavor.
• Onion: Sautéed in butter until tender to create a sweet, flavorful base.
• Butter: Adds richness and gives the vegetables and stuffing that essential buttery flavor.
• Better Than Bouillon + hot water: Creates a deeply flavored chicken broth without opening a carton. Regular chicken broth works too.
• Milk: Adds moisture and richness for a softer, more luxurious stuffing.
• Egg: Binds everything together and gives the stuffing structure as it cooks.
• Stuffing mix: The shortcut that makes this recipe so easy. We love Kinder’s stuffing mix for its seasoning and texture, but another similar dry stuffing mix will work.

Simple ingredients, big results. Measurements can be found in the recipe card below.

How to Make Crockp

These make ahead mashed potatoes are rich, buttery and unbelievably creamy, made with Yukon Gold potatoes and cream cheese so they reheat beautifully without turning watery or grainy.

Make them up to 3 days ahead in the refrigerator or freeze them for up to 2 months, then simply reheat when you’re ready to serve. One less thing to make on Thanksgiving day!

I have made mashed potatoes ahead of time a BILLION times, especially for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and technically you can do it with almost any mashed potato recipe. But after plenty of experimenting, I’ve found two things make a huge difference: Yukon Gold potatoes and cream cheese.

And if you have a FoodSaver, even better. That’s my absolute favorite way to store them. Removing the air helps protect the potatoes in the freezer, and freezing the bag flat makes storage AND reheating easier. They seriously taste like you just made them.

Ingredients You’ll Need

You only need 5 simple ingredients to make these mashed potatoes. Here’s what each one does:

• Yukon Gold Potatoes: Naturally buttery and creamy, and our favorite potato for mashed potatoes that will be frozen and reheated.
• Butter: Adds richness and helps create that silky mashed potato texture. We add a little extra on top before reheating too.
• Cream Cheese: The secret to make-ahead mashed potatoes! It adds richness and helps the potatoes stay creamy after refrigerating or freezing.
• Cream or Half and Half: Loosens the potatoes and makes them extra creamy. Warm it before adding so you aren’t cooling down the potatoes.
• Kosher Salt: Season both the cooking water and the finished potatoes so they’re flavorful all the way through.

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These aren’t your average roasted carrots! Melt in Your Mouth Roasted Carrots are buttery and caramelized around the edges, but so tender in the center they practically melt on your fork. 

Carrots, chicken broth, butter and herbs are all you need for the best vegetable side dish!

The secret is a melting technique much like braising meats and once you roast carrots this way, you’ll never go back. These are the most buttery, delicious carrots I’ve ever made. In fact, at our house, we call them, Melting Carrots!

Months ago The Kitchn published a “Melting Carrots” post where they use a specific melting vegetable technique: large carrot pieces roasted in butter, then broth is added so just like tender meat dishes you end up braising the veggies until extremely tender. Like, fall apart tender. It’s so good!

What are Melting Carrots?

If you haven’t heard of melting carrots yet, get ready to fall in love. Melting carrots are exactly what they sound like — carrots roasted in butter until they’re so fork-tender they practically melt in your mouth.

They’re roasted cut-side down in a hot buttery pan until caramelized on the bottom, then finished in a savory garlic-thyme pan sauce that thickens up and clings to every piece. The result is a carrot side dish unlike anything you’ve had before, rich, tender, and just a little bit fancy without any extra effort.