Plenty of traditional Thanksgiving sides tote “salad” in the title with nary a veggie in sight. You don’t have to nix Granny’s ambrosia or Watergate salad this year. But if you’re looking to eat slightly healthier, move those sugar bombs where they should be: the dessert table. Instead, fill your family’s holiday smorgasbord with local produce for a healthier, more sustainable feast.
Swap Ingredients: If you love your family’s traditional dishes, consider switching the ingredients from grocery store deals to tastier, locally grown produce.
The celery used in many dressing and stuffing recipes could benefit from such a makeover. Generally bland and unnoticed, grocery store celery—long, light green and watery tasting—seems a different variety than what you’ll find at a farmers market. Southern-grown celery generally isn’t as tall, grows a darker green and tastes like a concentrated form of its commercially produced cousin.
“It’s smaller, but it’s so much more flavorful,” says Carolyn Schew, lead farmer and communications manager for Diamond Hill Farm. You’ll be less likely to reach for the salt shaker if your taste buds get a flavor wallop.
Fresh brassicas, like broccoli and brussel sprouts, are another good investment. Older broccoli, or heads stored in fluctuating temperatures, tend to emit more of the typical sulfur smell when cooked. So keep the cheesy broccoli casserole, but suffer less while cooking it by buying local.
Cook Those Tops: If bought at the market, you’ll notice many farmers sell root vegetables with the greens still attached. Instead of pitching the leaves into the compost, you could use them to cook up another side dish. “You basically get a two-for-one when you get those,” Schew said.
Turnip greens can be cooked like collards without taking nearly as long. Beet greens can add a splash of color to an otherwise green-leafed salad. Even carrot tops can become a fun and spicy addition to a meal. I’ve used carrot tops in place of parsley for several recipes, including falafel and dressing.
Try New Seasonings: Sometimes switching the seasonings can help make a dish healthier. I use miso, a fermented soybean paste, to add a salty-umami taste to my collards instead of the traditional pork fat. It’s a useful switch if you’re worried about saturated fats, or if someone at your Thanksgiving table doesn’t eat pork. I still eat lard, but generally prefer it baked in fluffy biscuits and flaky pie crust where it really shines.
Fresh citrus is another trick for cutting out a little extra fat at the Thanksgiving table. While delicious, my tendency to add cheese to nearly everything isn’t the healthiest option. For me, the mac and cheese stays, but the broccoli gets sauteed with lemon juice, then topped with orange zest and sesame oil, instead of covered in a layer of cheddar cheese.
Find New Recipes: New recipes can be tricky, and instructions found on the internet often are chancy. For solid recipes that folks actually cook, try Diamond Hill Farm’s recipe section on their website, diamondhillfarmathens.com/recipes. Sorted by vegetable, many of the selected recipes are beginner-friendly and run the gamut from Asian-inspired to Mediterranean to Southern.
One of my favorite produce-forward cookbooks is Six Seasons by Joshua McFadden. He arranges the recipes by season first, then by vegetable. Many dishes feature the kind of crunchy textures and citrus-bright flavors I prefer.
If you’ve found an interesting but untested internet recipe, be sure to think critically about the directions. Do you actually need 1 cup of sugar to cover 8 ounces of shishito peppers? That ratio strikes me as a dish of sugar with a little pepper flavor added. I cut the sugar down to a tablespoon and thought the result was wonderful.
Give Thanks: It might be hard to reconcile recent political and meteorological events with the gratitude we’re supposed to feel on Thanksgiving. But for farmers like Carter Dodd, owner of Diamond Hill Farm, he takes this season to consider progress made in the last year and to start looking forward to next year’s new projects. “Thanksgiving, for me, it’s an exciting time of year,” Dodd says. “We’ve gotten through the grueling summer.”
Thanksgiving is a time for visiting with family and friends, and a pause to celebrate the bounty of the harvest, he says. If you’d like to pick up some local produce or ask for cooking tips, the Athens Farmers’ Market will hold a Wednesday, Nov. 27 market at Buvez (585 Barber St.) from 11 a.m.–2 p.m. for any last-minute Thanksgiving shopping.
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