Gluten Free Engineer - Making Gluten Free Easy

Gluten-Free Thanksgiving Menu Ideas (That Everyone Will Love)

• Carrie Saunders • Episode 45

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One of the biggest worries people have when going gluten-free is, ‘What on earth am I going to eat at Thanksgiving?’ Will it still taste good? Will everyone else actually enjoy it too? The good news is — yes, absolutely! 

In today’s episode, I’m sharing gluten-free Thanksgiving menu ideas that everyone at your table will love. From side dishes to desserts, I’ll walk you through simple swaps and family-favorite recipes that prove gluten-free food can be both safe and delicious. 

Stick with me until the end, because I’ll share the one secret ingredient that makes every gluten-free Thanksgiving dish taste amazing.


Come join us in our free Facebook Community, The Gluten Free Engineer. 

It’s a space where you can connect with others living gluten-free, ask questions, swap tips and recipes, and get support from people who truly get it. Whether you’re newly diagnosed or a seasoned gluten-free pro, you’ll feel right at home.

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Carrie Saunders:

Quick reminder before we get started on this episode. This podcast is based on my personal experiences and isn't medical advice. One of the biggest worries people have when going gluten-free is what on earth am I going to eat at Thanksgiving? Especially if you're American. Will it taste good? Will everyone else enjoy it too? And the good news is, yes, absolutely, of course. That's why I'm here. And in today's episode, I'm sharing gluten-free Thanksgiving menu ideas that everyone at your table will love. From side dishes to desserts, I'll walk you through simple swaps and family favorite recipes that prove gluten-free food can be both safe and delicious. And stick with me to the end because I'll share the one secret ingredient that makes every gluten-free Thanksgiving dish taste amazing. Let's dive in. Welcome to the Gluten Free Engineer Podcast. I'm your host, Carrie Saunders. In 2011, I was diagnosed with celiac disease, a moment that changed everything. But I was determined not to let it hold me back. With my two engineering degrees, I set out to reverse engineer the gluten-free lifestyle, breaking down recipes, safety tips, travel hacks, and everything in between to rebuild a life I love. Whether you have celiac disease, gluten intolerance, or simply choose to live gluten-free, this podcast is for you. Join me each week as we simplify the gluten-free lifestyle, make it fun, and prove that you don't have to miss out on anything. Welcome back to the show. As we're releasing this, Thanksgiving is coming upon us over here in the United States. If you're in another country in the world, we welcome you to enjoy some of our favorite Thanksgiving dishes as well. And I want to make sure that we can all feel like Thanksgiving is still normal and delicious. That's one of the things I strive to do for my family as we all journeyed into finding out that four out of the five of us have celiac, and the fifth one is gluten intolerant. So I want you to know that you can have a great, delicious, gluten-free Thanksgiving or really meal anytime. And what I've been doing the past many years is I've been doing the whole traditional Thanksgiving menu gluten-free, all of it. And I'm here to help you with that. I'm here to give you some tips. And one of the things you're going to want to make sure you check out after listening to this episode is our website at theglutenfreeengineer.com. And always be sure to sign up for our newsletter so you can get our newest recipes that we put up on our website. Now I want to say that family traditions can stay the same with small ingredient swaps. So any dish you have, I haven't found one yet that I couldn't convert to gluten-free. So if you have a dish that you're struggling to convert gluten-free, be sure to join our facebook group. You can also find that link on our website. And I want to encourage you, find some other people that can help you convert it if you can't do it. I kind of scrolled there for a minute. I didn't really mean to talk about my Facebook group, but I also want you to not feel left out. If you have a recipe you have struggled to convert gluten-free, please drop it in the group. I'm sure somebody will help us, and I'm sure I'll find it a fun challenge because I want us to enjoy the foods that we loved before finding out we had to be gluten-free. We want to focus on flavor, texture, and inclusivity and not deprivation. What can we have that tastes great? What do we already know? Let's say you do have a recipe that's really hard to get converted. What are the other ones that you really enjoy? And let's focus on those for now. One of the main things, of course, at a Thanksgiving table is a turkey. So let's talk about the turkeys. They are naturally gluten-free, of course, but we need to watch for them being marinated, having stuffing already put inside of them, uh, gravy mixes that are included with them. So we want to make sure we're buying a turkey that is um already gluten-free because they haven't added any gluten to it. Uh, I think I mentioned on my previous episode, we got really sick from a turkey that had a gravy packet already inside of it. We thought since it was sealed, it would be okay, was not okay. So, warning there, if you're celiac, we tend to go for the butterball brand. That's one that's been safe and not bothered us at all. I'm sure there are some other really good gluten-free turkeys out there. And you might be able to find one also that's uh locally raised as well, which is something we wanted to do, but our fame is a little bit big for that right now. And then I also want to encourage you when you're making your turkey, oh my goodness, people absolutely love our turkey from all walks of life, doesn't matter what they eat, they are like, oh my gosh, your turkey is the best turkey I've ever eaten. And I'm not kidding, it is juicy. The white meat is juicy, so flavorful. So, what do we do? We brine our turkey, and that recipe will be on our website, and then we smoke it on our smoker. Now, let's say you don't have a smoker, you can smoke a turkey on a grill as well, especially if the hood is large enough to fit the turkey inside. You can get a little smoke box on the side and smoke your turkey. So our turkey is not only flavorful from the brine because that pushes all the flavor inside of it and the juices and makes it taste delicious, but it also, you know, the smoking of it also gives it that extra like yummy type of flavor. And fun fact, cooking your turkey on the grill actually cooks faster generally than in your oven, too. So if you're in a hurry, putting it on the grill or on a smoker is a great way to speed up the cooking process and still make it flavorful and juicy. So make sure you check that recipe out on our website. And then hams or roasts are also really great. They're simple, they're flavorful, and they're easy to pair with gluten-free sides. I love to make a ham at Thanksgiving and sometimes at Christmas. Um I just love ham. It I it doesn't necessarily always love me. You know, it's a lot of salt, and so my fingers are still will start to smell, but it is my treat in the fall during the holidays. I have a really great simple ham recipe I'm going to put on our website for this episode. And it's a great one because it goes in the crock pot. You don't have to worry about it. You just set it and forget it for like four or five hours. And it's just wonderful, flavorful. People absolutely love it. Super duper simple. I think it's like three ingredients about it's not very many ingredients. It's really, really delicious. And you just take a pre-cooked ham and run with it with these extra additions to it. And then what about the sides? Like the gluten-free sides. I feel like Thanksgiving sides are like the main star of the show show many times. So if you are not familiar with you know, traditional Thanksgiving in the United States, like that is typically where people like go to is those side dishes. And then the first simple one would be mashed potatoes. Now, these are naturally gluten-free. Just skip any gravy thickener with flour. These are really easy to homemake. I find that a lot of people don't home make their mashed potatoes. When we have guests over, and especially uh some of our kids' friends, they're like, You make mashed potatoes from scratch. Like their jaw was on the floor. I'm like, yes, it's not that hard. And I show them how. So we will show you, give you some great tips on how to make some delicious mashed potatoes. And there's so many different varieties, how you can what you can add in it. We to traditionally just do um butter and whole milk, but you can also add a little bit of mayo if you tolerate mayo for some more creaminess. You could add a little sour cream, uh, a little cheese. Like there's so many ways you can uh level up your mashed potatoes. But we will give you the basic recipe on our website, and then stuffing, stuffing, dressing, whatever you want to call it. It's many times people's favorite like side dish at Thanksgiving. And you can simply swap your favorite gluten-free bread or cornbread, if you prefer cornbread stuffing, as the base, and then you basically make it gluten-free. Double check your broth if you use chicken broth and things like that, but it's really easy to make this one gluten-free. And I like to use the canyon bread for this one. The um, we usually will mix it with the white bread and the multi-grain. So if you like the multi-grain like texture, I would suggest like a half and half mix there. And it's really easy to just substitute gluten-free bread in much most traditional stuffing recipes. Now, I know a lot of you out there love a good sweet potato casserole. It's something I was that's a little bit newer to me. I just started eating it a few years ago when one of our children's friends came to us with a really great sweet potato casserole recipe. It has candied pecans on top of it, which is absolutely delicious. And I know some of you like to do a crumble topping on top. So if you're doing a sweet potato casserole, you just want to make sure if you do that crumble on top that the crumble is gluten-free. Whether you're using oats and you use certified gluten-free oats, or whether you need to be used flour in it, make sure you use that gluten-free flour with it. Now, green bean casserole is also a very traditional popular one for Thanksgiving United States. It's not one I don't think I've ever eaten. It's just, I don't know, there's something about the look of it. I just like, no, thank you. But you can, if you are a fan of that one, you can make that one gluten-free. Just make it with gluten-free cream and mushroom soup, like Pacific brand has one. You can also make it homemade. Just use my gluten-free chicken soup um recipe that I have on our website, and you can just modify it and add in some mushrooms instead and get some mushroom flavor in there, and it should work pretty well. So that is one that I feel like a lot of people would love. And then you can also get crispy onions. I know that they're an Aldi. If there's Aldi near you, they have some gluten-free crispy onions I've seen before. There's also some other ones that you can find in your local grocery store as well. I don't remember the name brands on them because they're not something I usually build. And then let's talk rolls. Okay, so rolls were the one thing that gave me fits the longest in getting right with making them gluten-free. And I have the best gluten-free pull apart roll recipe. Now, and I'm saying this is the best, not because I feel like my cooking's the best, because I feel like I do a decent job, but you know, I'm I'm not the best. I mean, some people say I'm the best cook out there, but I don't know. I don't know whether I agree with that or not. But I do know that these gluten-free rolls, once I nailed them, oh my gosh, they are so amazing. And one time we hosted a Thanksgiving in our house and we had over 30 some people there, like 30, 35 people, and most of them are not gluten-free. And the children were coming back for more rolls. So I feel like if the children are coming back for more rolls, that tells you they're darn good because children have no filter. And if they like it, they're gonna go back and get more, and they did. So they must have really liked it. So I'm gonna make sure that I have my gluten-free pull-apart rolls for you on the website. And eventually I will make as soon as I can a video of that one because I feel like you really have to follow the directions on that one well, right? Correctly. That it has you whipping them for a certain period of time. I'm gonna give you a hint here. Has you whipping them for a certain period of time? Time it. Trust me, try them, time it. And it's going to look like soupy stuff. But I will talk about that on the uh recipe link for that. Um, but my gluten-free pull-part rolls are so, so divine. And once you get it down, they're not too hard to make. And then cranberry sauce. This is my husband's favorite. He loves cranberry sauce, he loves it fresh made. He loves it out of that can and looking all weird and jiggly. It's just, it cracks me up. He loves a cranberry sauce. So this is almost always safe and it's naturally gluten-free unless somebody's done something crazy to it. So cranberry sauce is definitely something that should be fine for you. And then what would Thanksgiving be without the desserts? Now, what's your favorite gluten-free dessert? I want to know, drop me a message on Facebook. I'm super curious. I don't care what time of year you're listening to this podcast episode, I'd love to hear. But some of them in our family is pumpkin pie. You can make a really easy gluten-free pie crust. I will have that on our rest on our website as well. You can also get some frozen brands that are gluten-free and that are also good too. Although I find my homemade one is a bit better. And so all you have to do is really substitute that pie crust and then just double-check the recipe that it doesn't have some flour in it. I find some pumpkin pie recipes do. So, you know, adjust that to your recipe. But I have a really good pumpkin pie recipe and a pumpkin pie cupcakes. If you don't feel like doing the crust and you love pumpkin pie, I recommend you grab my pumpkin pie cupcake recipe on our website, theglutenfreeengineer.com. Absolutely divine. And it's like eating the inside of a pumpkin pie, and that's it. You're skipping the crust. Um, I've never really been a great big fan of the taste of crust, although sometimes it's you know necessary for structure. So feel free to go crustless if you need to. And then apple crisp or apple pie. You can use gluten-free oats and a bit of almond flour for perfect crunchy topping if you're doing apple crisp or an apple pie with like a crisp topping on it. You can also you just use a gluten-free um flour blend for your crunchy topping on top. I actually love to do that instead. I don't tolerate oats quite as well as I would like. And those are really, really good. And I have a decadent, I mean decadent apple pie recipe that I will include on our website. And it is a crustless top. It's got like a crumble top on it instead, which is one of the reasons I why I really like it. Because like I said, I'm not that big of a fan of pie crusts. They're okay. They're just, you know, that's just what they are. They're okay. And I've always been that way, even before I didn't know I couldn't have gluten. Um, so it's a really great apple pie recipe. I hope your mouth was watering just thinking about it. And then as we wrap up on talking about, you know, Thanksgiving dishes and uh all the things, I want you to look for some sneaky gluten traps to double check. Look for canned broths, make sure they're gluten-free. Soup bases, make sure they don't contain meat. Look at your seasoning blends or gravy packets. Um, watch the pre-made pie fillings, make sure they don't have any thickener already built into them. Look for wheat starch and processed foods or in toppings. And we want to make sure that we're safe when we're gluten-free. So when you're gathering those ingredients, make sure that you're safe. Now, the the recipes I put on my website, pretty much all of them don't use anything processed, like processed per se. Like, of course, flour is processed, but you know, I try to pick minimally processed ingredients in it. So you should be pretty safe, but always double check labels just in case. And then if you're hosting a Thanksgiving and you have a mixed company, label the dishes gluten-free so everyone knows what's safe. You keep your severing spoon separate to prevent cross contact. And if it's hitting somewhere else, bring one or two dishes that you can bring yourself that you make you help you feel included and excited. Um, and I challenge you, why not make the whole if you are like me and have multiple people in your house or family that have gluten issues, just make the whole thing gluten-free. Nobody's going to know, especially once you get these techniques down. And if you're not a big gluten-free uh cooker yet, let's say you don't cook too much from scratch, gluten-free. Start, I challenge you, each holiday, try a new recipe. Once you perfect it, try a new one after that. And you're going to start creating a bank of recipes you're comfortable with that you feel like taste delicious and are super emotionally fulfilling during the holidays, as well as great for your tummy and make you feel so much good. And if you always want to stay up to date whenever we post new recipes on our website, make sure to join our newsletter. Just go to thegutenfreengineer.com and click on the link for newsletter, and you can sign up. We send the newsletter currently about once every other week. So it's not like a high volume newsletter. We may get it to about once a week, but I promise we won't be spamming you in there. That is something that drives me absolutely crazy. And then I want to follow up with that last secret ingredient that makes every gluten-free Thanksgiving dish taste amazing. And I kind of hinted to this already with my tip at the end of the episode, and that's confidence. When you serve food that you know is safe, delicious, and made with care, that confidence will show and everyone will feel it. Gluten-free food doesn't have to feel like a compromise, it can be the star of the table. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Gluten Free Engineer. If you found value in this story, please share it with someone who might need encouragement on their own gluten-free journey. For more tips, recipes, resources, and even links to my YouTube channel, head on over to theglutenfreengineer.com. It's your one-stop hub to make gluten-free living simple, fun, and full of flavor. And don't forget to subscribe so you never miss out on an episode. And we will see you next week. The Gluten Free Engineer Podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. I share my personal experiences and stories about living with celiac disease and navigating a gluten free lifestyle. This podcast does not provide medical advice. Always consult with a qualified healthcare professional for medical questions, concerns, or advice specific to your health.

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Carrie Saunders

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