One-Hour Sheet Pan Thanksgiving Sides

Thanksgiving spread with stuffing, gravy, cranberries, squash, turkey brussels sprouts, and potatoes.

This recipe is sponsored by ALDI

Hi. Let me introduce you to the easiest way to make three Thanksgiving sides, with minimal hands-on work, in roughly one hour: THE SHEET PAN METHOD.

Here are the three delicious sides that you’ll get with this one hour of time:

Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes – creamy, tangy, rustic and full of roasty garlic flavor. I honestly have a hard time stopping with these.

Herbed Squash – delicate and earthy and deep, thanks to a heavy pinch of thyme and some roasted-caramelized onions. Beautiful.

Maple Mustard Brussels Sprouts – crispy, very thoroughly browned (the only way to eat a brussel sprout), textural with the toasted walnuts and dried cherries, and sweet and a little spicy from the mustard. Just… wow. Even my toddler loves these.

Mashed potatoes, brussels sprouts, and herbed squash in bowls.

This sounds like it will take you hours to make.

I PROMISE YOU IT WILL NOT.

A few sheet pans, a few pours and sprinkles = done.

As I’ve been playing with this, and eating a lot of Thanksgiving food in the process, I’ve been laser focused on the following goals:

saving time
saving money
saving kitchen / stove space
getting three ACTUALLY good Thanksgiving sides without feeling like you just spent the whole day doing a lot of hard work.

In 2020, when we’re gathering for Thanksgiving with like, maybe five people? and cooking mostly by ourselves? and all that work? Oh my gosh, let’s give ourselves a break. When it can taste this good with so little work, it’s just not necessary.

Here’s my proposition: You pick the Thanksgiving stars that you really want to put your time, energy and fancy tricks into this year. The turkey? The stuffing? The pie? It doesn’t need to be every single dish. You pick. Pick one, two, maybe three stars.

And then you let these three sheet pans take care of the rest.

Potatoes, brussels sprouts, and squash on sheet pans.

Here’s my other proposition: make your Thanksgiving haul at ALDI. You’ll save money, and you’ll find not only quality, fun, interesting ingredients but also many of them ORGANIC.

Ingredients from ALDI for Thanksgiving sides.

I bought everything for these three sheet pan recipes at ALDI for a fraction of the cost of my usual Thanksgiving grocery haul, but I would also like to recommend the following to round out the table:

Butterball turkey (That’s right, you heard it, ALDI sells butterball turkeys.)
Chef’s Cupboard Stuffing Mix (This boxed stuffing is… I just… I don’t know why it’s so good. I love it. I leave it totally as-is but maybe just broil at the end for some crunchiness.)
Sweet Harvest Whole Berry Cranberry Sauce (I like to add some orange juice and/or zest for a semi-homemade cranberry sauce.)
L’oven Fresh Hawaiian Sweet Rolls (Yes, you should make some fancy herb or honey butter to go with them.)
Cheese, olives, and every other dip and cracker for an appetizer situation.

All the yumminess. ALDI, WE LOVE YOU.

All the things that Thanksgiving is *usually* about feel especially up in the air this year. Like…

Traveling to see family and friends
Gathering with large groups
Sharing meals around warm, cozy, and close-together tables

But sharing a good meal with someone you love is not canceled. Let’s make it happen.

Whether you’re doing the normal thing this year or not (probably most of us some version of not), this one-hour sheet pan sides method, this complete brain-and-space-and-time-saver, is kind of my new favorite thing about Thanksgiving.

A note that the photos here show these sheet pan recipes DOUBLED. The original recipes written here are meant to serve a smaller group (thanks, 2020) but you can easily scale up as needed to serve more people or get more leftovers.