My brother often brings a fried turkey. It’s not breaded. It’s just cooked in hot oil. It’s not really hugely different from roast turkey.
My mom made a great one while I was growing up. Only me and my dad ate it so plenty for us.
This year I realized I’m an idiot. There is never enough room in the over. Completely unrelated I always cut the legs and thighs off to cook separately. Why am I an idiot? I just realized I could (should) be cooking the dark meat on the grill which incidentaly frees up oven space.
Cooking the turkey in pieces? What heresy is this? 
A thing I’ve been incorporating lately is a nice apple cider (not hard, can be sparkling) in glass stemware. I don’t drink and my kid is underaged and doesn’t like alcohol yet, so it’s a little bit of something fun and more fancy than water, less trashy than soda. Plus I find the cider taste goes well with all the turkey, taters, corn, rice, etc. It doesn’t go well with my other new addition: blanched snow peas that are then fried up with soy sauce, garlic, and sesame oil, then tossed with some sesame seeds.
My family is the same . You should have heard them howl when my sister- in-law made a salad that didn’t use iceberg lettuce. They will sometimes accept something new but 1) if they like it we must have it forever (we’re still eating the green bean casserole one of my in-laws brought 30 years ago even though the in-law doesn’t come for dinner anymore) and 2) Nothing can get dropped from the menu.
This is my family’s Thansgiving menu. Occasionally, something else might be added but nothing is ever removed.
Turkey
Ham (for people who don’t eat turkey)
A vegan or vegetarian main ( depending on who is coming to dinner. These are the among the least picky people at the dinner)
Two kinds of roasted potatoes ( onion and garlic)
canned yams with marshmallows ( modified for the vegans)
Stuffing
Gravy
Salad (must contain iceberg lettuce- no spring mix or arugula), and a few specific vegetables . Tomato, peppers, celery, carrots and maybe radish. No fruit or nuts,
Cranberry sauce - must be canned. Someone was nearly killed when they brought fresh cranberry salad.
Corn
Cauliflower
Broccoli
Green bean casserole
Italian bread
Dessert is the only thing that’s different every year - it depends on what I feel like making. Might be cheesecake, might be tiramisù. Whatever it is, I usually make some cookies , too. No pies unless someone buys one - and if they do, it won’t be pumpkin.
Same here. For 25 years – 25 YEARS!!! – we have eaten the exact same meal, using the exact same recipes, at the exact same time (1pm, which means waking up at ~4am to start cooking) every year save one: 2020, when Covid was in full swing, our little family of 4 stayed at home and ate what we wanted. But that was the one exception.
We – and be we, I mean I – cook about 90% of the Thanksgiving meal each year. At this point Thanksgiving dinner could be cold Spaghettios straight from the can and I would be perfectly happy.
However, what we have to have each year, lest I incur the wrath of the in-laws, is:
- Turkey, brined ahead of time using the Alton Brown recipe although I might use a premade mix this year.
- Gravy
- Cranberry sauce (homemade is mandatory, I now incorporate some tips given by ChefGuy)
- Stuffing (due to all the other stuff I have to cook, I’ve resorted to using Stove Top. So shoot me.)
- Potato salad (my wife’s family insists)
- Apple pie
My wife’s family contributions:
- Ham
- Green bean casserole
- Mashed potatoes
- Rolls
- Charcuterie board
- My MIL’s revolting imitation wallpaper paste she passes off as food
- chocolate, pumpkin, and banana crème pie
This entire menu is repeated on Christmas.
While I’ve eaten the sweet potato with marshmallow topping stuff, I’ve never had it at Thanksgiving. I’ve never had non-traditional stuffing: oyster, cornbread, sausage, etc. Corn has never been served at our Thanksgiving, although my mother says that was part of her childhood T-day. Dunno why she didn’t incorporate it into her own holiday dinners.
Turkey, gravy, cranberry sauce, some mashed potatoes, and a double dose of green bean casserole would be the perfect Thanksgiving dinner. Everything else I can take or leave.
In my family, we call sparkling juices “kids wine”, and yes, they’re a nice classy addition to a traditional family meal.
And while we’ll always have some sort of salad, what kind is variable, and it never involves iceberg lettuce. Mom has always taken all of her vegetable dishes seriously.
Cauliflower salad is a good choice. The basis is just fine-chopped cauliflower and mayonnaise. Possible add-ins include bacon, shredded cheddar cheese, peanuts, French fried onions, and a bit of celery seed. Sugar is completely unnecessary.
Honesty, I could do without the turkey, it’s just not one of my favorites to sit down and eat. I do enjoy turkey sandwich leftovers though. I like stuffing, but agree 100% with Chefguy, no oysters. My sister-in-law does a fabulous sweet potato dish. I don’t care too much for the sweets with marshmallows.
I’m not a huge fan of turkey, and i only cook it once a year, for Thanksgiving. I don’t buy turkey cold cuts. I don’t get turkey sausage or ground turkey or anything else turkey the rest of the year. (I’ll eat it if it’s served to me.) But for Thanksgiving, i shell out for a heritage turkey that actually has a strong turkey flavor, and it’s pretty good. The house smells nice when it’s cooking. The gravy is delicious.
My vegan relative holds a vegan thanksgiving with other vegans. She doesn’t want to watch us carve and eat a whole bird. You know, it actually looks like a dread animal on the table. That’s fine with me, it means i don’t have to be careful about not adding butter to stuff.
I’ve mentioned this before, but our Millennial kids and their cousins, who are iconoclasts in every other way (not one of 'em owns a TV)…
…HAVE to have a Thanksgiving weekend IDENTICAL in every way to the ones they grew up with.
So granny, even though she’s pushing 100, HAS to make her mandarin orange Jell-O. And we HAVE to serve our traditional cranberry concoction as well as the jellied cranberry (“Make sure it has the can lines on it!”). And three specific pies.
Hey, it’s all delicious, but someday I’d love to deviate from the norm. Maybe when the kids are in a retirement home…