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In my family we have served roast chicken with tandoori spices and curried green vegetables with coconut flakes in the past. Most of my Indian family will politely decline dinner if I served them only turkey with potatoes on the side. So chicken made a very good replacement. Oh and some rice pilaf or indian bread is always present on the table.

I'm not sure this is even a typically Chinese thing (I think my family just really likes it), but there is ALWAYS a plate of pickled jellyfish on the table at Thanksgiving or Christmas or Fourth of July, for that matter.

We do the usual turkey, but most of my family doesn't care for turkey, so we have a ham, too. Spinach madeline, gourmet maccaroni and cheese w/smoked gouda, the traditional calorie-laden broccoli casserole, green beans, stuffing, the works. My favorite thing, though, is my mom's cranberry salad. Fresh cranberries and minced gala or red delicious apples (peel left on) mixed into cranberry jello and raspberry jello and then chilled. That stuff is the BEST.

My family always makes sure that my grandma's holubsti (cabbage rolls) are on the table.
We've had homemade pyrohy too, which my brother's girlfriend makes.

Some years, when we're feeling extra traditional, we'll even have the boiled wheat (kasha), pickled herrings along side the homemade dills.

I love Ukranian food during the holidays.

We serve Ghanian joloff and plantain along with our turkey. It's the best part.

There will be rice instead of mashed potatoes, which is fine by me because mom always defaulted to the boxed potatoes if she bothered with them at all. There will probably be pancit bihon, which is like a Filipino chow mein made with the thin, clear rice noodles. I also expect pork or chicken adobo--meat stewed in a vinegar, soy sauce, black pepper, and bay leaf marinade until it's tender and falling off the bone. There may be lumpia, the Filipino egg rolls, but they're labor intensive. Maybe dinuguan, which is a pork blood stew with a big chili pepper tossed in for heat. Then dad's special giblet gravy, which is the best gravy I've ever had, and after Thursday, his turkey soup with shells. Mmm.

when I was growing up we would have thanksgiving with my polish grandparents. my busia would make the usual thanksgiving things and she would also make pierogi (both the sauerkraut and my favorite kind with cheese, potato, and onion), chruściki (deep fried, thin pastry strips with powdered sugar), and latkes.

it would drive my italian mom crazy to see me with basically a big plate of potatoes. I would always load up on pierogi and latkes and mashed potatoes...

ps. I should say usual american things. at least I was always under the impression that the rest of it was the typical american stuff. my busia wasn't big on casseroles (and neither is my mom), so it wasn't until I lived in england with a bunch of other american college students that I realized that casseroles (the kinds with "cream of" soups as the base) were the center of everyone else's thanksgiving side dishes.

Standard turkey and mashed potatoes, but for appetizers my dad made kolbasz (Hungarian sausage) that he slices up and we put out with the veggie tray and dips. It gives the appetizers a little bit of girth (but not TOO much).

My family is Filipino and Italian, so during really crowded Thanksgivings, there is more than enough food to go around. We do the usual (Turkey, Stuffing, Cranberry, Mashed Potatoes, etc...), but on top of that, we usually serve Adobo-style spare ribs or chicken, lumpia, seafood lasagna, linguini and clams... Yum! This year, it's a wee celebration with only 12 of us, but we'll still have all the foods represented.. just in smaller portions!

Also, white rice is AMAZING with turkey gravy on it.

OneWallKitchen - didn't notice your comment before I posted! Gotta love pancit, although we do pancit canton. I love Thanksgiving, because it's one of the only times I get lumpia shanghai throughout the year! But I have to say, we (or at least I) stay away from the dinuguan! :D

I think only on christmas and easter is when my family has an ethnic holiday dinner. There isn't much we do on Thanksgiving just the usual things everyone does but Christmas we all go to grandma's and make tamales (a BIG batch of over 100!!) and of course menudo.

Instead of stuffing, rice pilaf, instead of sweet potatoes, pumpkin phyllo triangles and this year, I'm tossing the turkey out completely and doing Persian lamb shanks with pomegranate and quince. For dessert, chocolate espresso pot de creme.

My mom made Norwegian things like surkaal, a Christmas dish of boiled cabbage with vinegar, sugar, and caraway seeds.

The typical stuff plus one or more types of kimchi, rice and maybe some japchae, mook, or pajun. Not for their specialness, but more to have some of the familiar along with the Western stuff at table. I think some years (after we kids grew up) they skip the turkey and everything completely and just have a regular Korean feast.

I wish we did more traditional puerto rican cooking at thanksgiving. I'm not so keen on our thanksgiving feast, but christmas dinner is always divine. (mmm pernil) I need to find a way to gently convince my family that non-traditional food is just fine for thanksgiving.

The one time my mom made a turkey she glazed it with a soy sauce mixture. Otherwise, it's a bunch of Chinese dishes.

My mother's side of the family is inbred Yankee, so the stereotypical turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce IS our ethnic meal.

My in-law family is from Puerto Rico

Roast Pork
Rice and Beans
Baked mac and cheese
corn on the cob
usually some sort of pasta or potato salad
and lots desserts with coconut as a main ingredient.
My niece and nephew are the only ones who LOVE pumpkin pie so they pretty much split it between the two of them.

Since my family is Jewish, we always have kugel at our Thanksgiving - usually either apple raisin (lokshen kugel) or potato kugel - and tzimmes often makes an appearance as well. My husband was shocked the first time he came to Thanksgiving that we don't have mashed potatoes - but it's hard to make good ones without using any milk products (my family keeps kosher).