5 Basic Thanksgiving Dinner Ideas

If you're planning a holiday dinner party, you'll want to know these 5 basic Thanksgiving dinner ideas that form the foundation of a great traditional meal. You don't have to be a master chef to make Thanksgiving a memorable occasion for your friends, family and colleagues. Starting with these basic Thanksgiving dinner ideas will help you come up with more extravagant recipes in the future.

1. The Thanksgiving turkey. This is the most iconic and highly-anticipated part of the traditional Thanksgiving dinner. It is hard for most to even envision Thanksgiving without a big juicy turkey sitting at the table. The traditional Thanksgiving turkey stands as a mountain of mouth-watering flavor overlooking everything else.
2. Thanksgiving dressing. The turkey dressing is an inseparable partner of the Thanksgiving turkey itself. While dressing is often served from within the turkey as stuffing, you can also prepare and cook it outside the turkey. The latter method is actually well justified because of food safety issues.
3. The ham. A ham offers dinner guests a second choice of meat for Thanksgiving dinner. A popular idea for preparing a holiday ham is to adorn it with cloves and top it with pineapple slices. Honey-baked and caramelized hams also work well for Thanksgiving.
4. Cranberry sauce. Cranberry sauce has been a staple of Thanksgiving dinner since the Civil War. It can be served straight from the can or you can make your own cranberry sauce using fresh berries.
5. Sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes, or yams, are an extremely versatile staple of Thanksgiving dinner. You can prepare them in the same way as baked potatoes, with butter and brown sugar, or as a casserole with marshmallows on top. Another good Thanksgiving idea is to make sweet potato pie for dessert.