Here Are Literally 50 More Side Dishes You Can Make Without Animal Products This Thanksgiving

We’ve got bread, we’ve got gravy, and of course we have stuffing — are you ready to get your vegan feast on again?

Credit: Fifty Years Too Late

Last week, I established that this last year has nearly squeezed the life out of me so I am going to just copy-paste the introduction to last year’s collection of 50 amazing vegan side dishes for Thanksgiving because, you know what? It’s perfectly fine and nothing much has changed except that life has gotten even more complicated and fraught since last year. So here we go…

“I get it: Thanksgiving is very serious business in households across the U.S. If you dare to go rogue and stray from Aunt Eddie’s trusted cranberry sauce by using pecans instead of walnuts, grown-ass adults can transform into pouty toddlers faster than you can say “sacrilege.” So, if you suggest replacing the customary dead turkey with a plant-based main dish as the centerpiece, as I did earlier this week, you know things are going to get tense in some families. Buckle up, buttercups!

…

…Having been vegetarian and then vegan since the 1980s — it was a totally tubular time — I know that people take their Thanksgiving traditions very seriously. There’s nothing like getting the evil eye at a Thanksgiving table to remind you that some people will tolerate your annoying herbivorous self the rest of the year but on the fourth Thursday of November, all bets are off.

Why can’t you vegans just eat around the turkey?

First, um, no. Gross. Would you “eat around” something that disgusts or deeply saddens you? Second, it’s not only the meat industry that brutalizes animals; the dairy and the egg industries not only buttress the meat industry as outlets of profitability for mining what can be extracted from animals’ bodies, but these industries are just as cruel and exploitative as the actual flesh trade. Besides, the animals end up being slaughtered when they are no longer considered productive at the end of their short lives anyway. (Please check out my Myth of Harmlessness series on the dairy and egg industries to learn more.)

Now that I got all that out of the way, I…