A lot of dishes on the Thanksgiving dinner table can be prepped in advance, making the meal even easier on turkey day.
Chef Geoffrey Zakarian, Food Network host of "The Kitchen," joined "Good Morning America" to help share how home cooks can get a jump start on Thanksgiving preparations.
The two dishes that he said are best to make ahead of time are stuffing and cranberries.
Zakarian suggests freezing pre-baked stuffing that has a cream or fat in it to help it from drying out. Then just defrost the dish before you're ready to pop it into the oven and serve with a stock or gravy to keep it moist.
Cranberry relish can be made up to a month in advance and he said you can even save some smaller batches for Christmas.
Check out his full recipe below to spice it up without making it overly sweet.
Yield: 8-10 servings
Ingredients
1 pound ground spicy pork sausage
2 tablespoons onion powder
1 tablespoon garlic powder
2 teaspoons ground fennel seed
1 cup Spanish onions diced
1 cup fennel diced
1 cup chestnuts, canned or packaged, chopped
1 cup celery (diced) 1 cup carrots (diced) 2 tablespoons garlic (minced)
2-3 cups chicken stock
4 cups crumbled corn bread
Kosher Salt to taste
Black Pepper to taste
Cream, optional
Directions
In a large sauté pan on low heat, add your ground spicy pork sausage and cook slowly to render out the fat and season with salt and pepper, garlic powder, onion powder and fennel seed.
Once the fat is rendered and the meat starts to brown, add the Spanish onions, fennel, chestnuts, celery, carrots and garlic.
Cook until meat continues to brown, the carrots become soft and tender and the onions become translucent.
Add the corn bread and chicken stock and stir until completely incorporated, and the bread is moist. Add a touch of cream if you’d like additional fat. Season with salt and black pepper.
You may choose to serve the stuffing as is, broil it in a shallow pan, or bake it in the oven so it dries slightly and gets crispy on top. 30 minutes in a 350 degree oven should do the trick.
Serve family style.
Yield: 8-10 servings
Ingredients
6 cups fresh cranberries (frozen can be substituted)
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup Acacia Honey
4 cups fresh orange juice
1/4 cup fresh Ginger root (peeled and chopped)
2 star anise
1 cinnamon stick
1/2 cup fresh orange zest (pith removed)
2 teaspoons fine sea salt
Directions
Combine the sugar, Honey and orange juice in a medium sized heavy sauce pot. Simmer over low heat until completely diluted.
Add the ginger root along with the chopped zest, anise and cinnamon stick.
Add the cranberries and simmer, uncovered, for two hours until mixture begins to thicken. Stir often to avoid browning and sticking. It is best to make the relish one day in advance.
- Cook green veggies, starches, gravy and turkey on Thanksgiving day.
- Cut and blanch vegetables or potatoes the day before and store it in the fridge.
- But root vegetables and frozen turkey four to five days before Thanksgiving.
- Fill a cooler with ice to store other items and create extra room in the fridge for more important perishable items.