Here Are Literally 50 More Vegan Main Dishes You Can Eat Instead of Turkey This Thanksgiving

No dead animals? No problem! There are endless ways to enjoy your feast without compromising your taste buds or your values.

Credit: Kay Lovelace Smith

I will admit, it’s a little lazy of me but I am just going to quote my introduction to last year’s epic (if I must say so myself, and indeed I must) collection of 50 vegan main dishes to enjoy for Thanksgiving instead of turkey.

“I will start this bluntly and unappetizingly: For the Thanksgiving holiday alone in the United States, approximately 46 million sensitive, innocent birds who have been intentionally bred for painful and short lifespans in cramped, miserable environments will be killed for meals in households across the country. A much smaller number of turkeys will be slaughtered against their will on smaller farms and in nature. Why? Because somehow eating a turkey’s body has come to mean celebrating gratitude in this country on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States. Given the needless brutality inflicted on millions of animals that this tradition requires, perhaps it’s time we reassess how we engage with the spirit of gratitude.

A turkey’s carcass is literally just that, but with a plant-based main dish, you can enjoy such varied complex and captivating flavors and textures from vegetables, fruits, legumes, grains, herbs and on and on, whether it’s in the form of a traditional roast, a savory pie or something altogether different. When you think of it like that, doesn’t a beige slab of a tortured animal’s flesh seem kind of boring in comparison?

Every year at Thanksgiving, I feel grateful that there are more options than ever that are delicious and do not require anyone’s suffering and death. There is something for every palate and cooking skill level listed here.”

Are we ready to do this thing without dead animals on platters? Of course we are! We’re going to do it again and with fifty more vegan Thanksgiving main dish recipes. Turkeys are sensitive, inquisitive and complex beings. We can live perfectly happy, content lives and enjoy perfectly delicious holiday meals without inflicting violence, so why wouldn’t we? (Now is a great time to…