The Oven Space/Time Continuum: How Do You Schedule Oven Time for Your Thanksgiving Dinner?

Between turkey, pies, stuffing, and sweet potatoes, it seems like almost everything for the traditional Thanksgiving meal needs a spot in the oven. How do you make it all fit?

How do you schedule your oven time? I have one very small apartment-sized oven; you can't fit two 13x9 pans side by side on the racks, and a jelly roll pan barely fits. So I can't double-up on dishes very much. I imagine that many of you are in similar situations, so here's a place to talk about your oven scheduling dilemmas!

And here are a few tips, too.

• Make the pies (and any other desserts) the day before. A pumpkin or mince pie is perfectly good the day after it has been baked; in fact, I really prefer day-old pies. The flavors have matured and grown more interesting. You can always warm the pies in the oven on low during dinner, if you want to serve them warm.

• Put your slow cooker to use! If you don't have a slow cooker, beg one from someone else and use it to keep mashed potatoes warm, or sweet potatoes or stuffing.

• Remember the turkey needs to rest. It should rest for awhile after you take it out of the oven, and then it will need to be carved before bringing it to the table. This leaves you at least 30 minutes to stuff everyone's casserole dishes in the oven to warm.

• And, after all that, keeping your dishes covered will really preserve their heat. I made a stuffing-panade the other night and it was finished at least an hour and a half before dinner was served. I kept it covered on the stovetop and it was still plenty warm when served at suppertime. Of course, you do need to be careful with this sort of decision; some dishes really should be served almost immediately or else refrigerated. Use good judgment and refer to the USDA food safety regulations when in doubt.

So, what does that leave you with? Make your pies the day before, then make up a couple pans of potatoes and stuffing. On Thanksgiving Day, roast your turkey, then pop your potatoes and stuffing in the oven after the turkey has baked. Warm the pies during dinner, and you're set.

That's one approach, anyway! What about you? How do you schedule oven time on Thanksgiving?

More Thanksgiving De-Stressing Tips:
• Cooking for a Crowd: How To Cook a Stress-Free Feast
• Stress-less Dinner Tip: Set the Table the Night Before
• Stress-less Dinner Tip: Set Up a Dessert Station

(Image: Faith Durand)

Comments (15)

Some suggestions:

1. You don't have to cook everything in the kitchen - you can put a crockpot or roaster oven in another room or even outside if you have an outlet in a covered area.

2. Use corningare dishes that are able to fit into carriers - they make casserole dishes that can go into insulated bags to keep them heated for transport. You don't have to take them anywhere, they can be used to cook some items then you can stuff them in the bag while more things are in the oven.

You can improvise by using a cooler and adding some warmed bricks wrapped in towels to make a hot box to keep some things warm.

3. If you are ever in the market to replace your microwave consider getting a convection model that can be used as an oven or even a warming drawer.

4. Heat up the dishes that you will be serving on. Even if the food is just beginning to cool, serving it on a warmed plate will really help.

5. At the end of T-Day think about things that you could have used - them get up early to hit the Black Friday sales where some of those items might be on sale!

best purchase ever made - a roaster. I've made chicken for 20 in it, while keeping the oven off. Takes up a lot of counter space, but you can put it on an out of the way space and use your oven for everything else

I don't have anymore room in my fridge for stuff that has been cooked the night before, and my slow cooker is taken with another side dish. The only thing I am concerned about is the turkey/dressing. Turkey cooks at 325 to 350, stuffing is supposed to cook at 400. There aren't any oysters in it or anything to go bad, so I'm okay with slow roasting the dressing, but concerned it will make the turkey take longer to cook. Decisions decisions!!

That photo is hysterical. It looks as busy as JFK Airport on a holiday!!

Thank you so much for the article. I have severe time-management anxiety. However, I'm lucky to have an oven, a microwave and a toaster oven that acts as a convection oven as well, so I think I'm covered!

Oh yes! Toaster oven - forgot about that one. Great for warming bread.

And @GreatFriend, totally! That's from my aunt's house, where there are always 30-40 people for Thanksgiving.

I'm one of the VERY lucky that has two ovens :)...but crock pots are great too

This (Canadian) Thanksgiving I made the stuffing in the slow cooker. This was so simple, and delicious. And I found it easy to borrow an extra slow cooker from a friend; much easier than trying to borrow an extra oven!

Divide it up between the family that lives nearby. Just because you're hosting doesn't mean you have to do all the work!

I'm amused by the photo as well. The high end Jenn-Air stove (though this one looks to be from the 80's?) and the Revere Ware type pots and Corning dishes. :)

Make ahead dishes are key!

When we were students we cooked christmas dinner for about a dozen friends, and, in the absence of more than one oven, we cooked the turkey in another house up the road, sending people in to baste it every so often.

One year the turkey was cooked about 10 miles away and brought over in a landrover since it needs to rest anyway. It's all a matter of working with what you have.

I cooked an 18-lb turkey on my outdoor grill last year, and I will never go back to oven-roasting. It tasted great, left the oven free for everything else, and I didn't have to contend with the roasted turkey smell in my house for the next 3 days.

We used our crock pot to cook the turkey breast. We were running a charity Thanksgiving run in the morning, so we just put the breast in, covered it with some seasoning, and set it to low. We didnt even add broth--it created its own juices.

5 hours later, we got home, threw the side dishes in the oven (luckily all need to cook at the same temp) and let the breast rest.

For christmas dinner, our neighbor, who goes out of town for christmas, kindly lets us use her oven. No stress, plenty of room! It's great!

We have a project plan in Microsoft Project that helps us with the timing for all these things. Mostly we do what we can ahead of time and then reheat while the turkey is resting.