Cindy Rybaczyk
I love easy recipes, especially ones that make holiday dinners excellent and easy! If you want to make your holiday meals easy, here are some of our recipes that will accomplish that task.
Another one of our holiday side dishes that we prepare the day before is our Sweet Potato Casserole. For the longest time, I used to only make this on the holidays. I finally realized it was so good that we needed to have it more often! Sweet potatoes, olive oil, butter, maple syrup, brown sugar, and seasonings make this everybody's favorite side dish. This also warms up nicely in the oven while the turkey breast cooks in the Instant Pot!
Another side dish we make the day before to serve with our holiday meals is our Sweet & Creamy Cole Slaw. We chop up the cabbage and the baby carrots in our food processor to simplify the preparation. I was always a fan of the cole slaw served in one of the fast-food chicken restaurants, but after making this, it's become our favorite. It's best to make this the day before so it chills down completely in the refrigerator before serving.
The first item on my holiday menu is Maryland Crab Soup, a classic dish from the Chesapeake Bay area rich in flavors. It combines lump crabmeat, onions, celery, potatoes, vegetables, crushed tomatoes, broth, Sherry wine, seasonings, Old Bay, and Zatarain's Creole Seasoning. It's easy to make and takes about 15 minutes of prep time and 35 minutes of cooking time.
For our main course on the holidays, we always do an Instant Pot Turkey Breast - it comes out super moist, juicy, and tasty! I use my 8-quart Instant Pot (I have the Duo Crisp 11-in-1 that I link to in the recipe) and it fits a 6.5-7.5 pound turkey breast just perfectly. There's no need to fully thaw the turkey breast in advance - run it under hot water just enough to get the turkey gravy packet out - easy!
One of the side dishes that we prepare the day before Thanksgiving to make meal preparation easier is our Thanksgiving Stuffing. Someone recently told me that I've named this side dish incorrectly because stuffing goes inside of a turkey. This really should be called Thanksgiving Dressing! Whatever you call it, I call it good! Diced bread, butter, onions, celery, apples, milk, eggs, and Bell's All Natural Seasoning make this a tasty side dish.
Surprisingly, some of the people who come to our holiday gatherings don't eat turkey! We started making this at the holidays and it's been a huge hit, so much so that everyone digs in! This is Beef & Guinness Stew that we make in a crockpot. In the recipe, I also share directions for making it on the stovetop or in an Instant Pot. I haven't found anyone who's been disappointed in this recipe - it's a crowd-pleaser!
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