3 Ways to Serve Turkey at a Small Thanksgiving Gathering

If your Thanksgiving is a small-scale celebration, cooking a whole turkey for just a few people feels like overkill. No need to skip the turkey — just rethink your cooking strategy. Here are three ways to serve turkey this Thanksgiving without cooking the whole bird.

If the highlight of Thanksgiving dinner for you is thin slices of turkey topped with gravy, look no further than a traditional roast turkey breast. This cut delivers tender white meat, with simple no-fuss roasting that doesn’t call for flipping. One turkey breast is typically enough to serve four to six, with plenty of drippings for gravy.

Get a recipe: How To Cook Turkey Breast: The Simplest, Easiest Method

If you believe Thanksgiving is not complete without the stuffing cooked inside the turkey, I have good news: It doesn’t require cooking the whole bird. For smaller celebrations, a butterflied and stuffed turkey breast will help you achieve similar results. If you’ve ever prepared a stuffed chicken breast, this comes together in much the same way — it’s just a larger piece of meat.

Get a recipe: Apple, Pecan & Brie Stuffed Turkey Breast

If you’re all about the dark meat on Thanksgiving, make this year’s dinner all about the turkey legs. The drumsticks and thighs are a tougher cut of the bird than the lean breast meat, and ones that are particularly suited to braising. The low, slow cooking teases the meat into a result so tender, it falls off the bone with the touch of a fork. Consider this the one-pot dinner that delivers everything you want to eat on Thanksgiving without tasting like the traditional meal.

Get a recipe: Dutch Oven Braised Turkey