It’s hard to take risks with Thanksgiving dinner.
The entire meal centers around turkey, perhaps the blandest and most un-inspiring of all meats. You’ll often have to accommodate the insane dietary preferences of your friends and family members, which can range from your vegan best friend to your cranky aunt who thinks anything non-traditional is “the Devil.” Your cousin wants a deep-fried turkey, but your sister has seen one too many deep-fried turkey disaster videos to let that fly. And everyone has an opinion on the best kind of stuffing.
You’ll probably be assaulted with political banter this Thanksgiving and are no longer on speaking terms with half your relatives anyway. So why not forget about pleasing anyone during this notoriously stressful holiday and wing it?
Here are some unconventional YouTube cooking tutorials for Thanksgiving dinner.
1) Cook the turkey in a beer keg
Why not take draining your sorrows in alcohol one step further by cooking your turkey in a beer keg?
2) Cook the turkey in a trash can
It’s hardly hygienic and makes absolutely no logical sense. Just like half your relatives!
3) Cook Thanksgiving dinner for two
If you physically can’t stand the sight of your relatives this Thanksgiving, you can always just grab your significant other or your buddy and cook Thanksgiving for just the two of you. This cost-saving tutorial by Chef Julie Yoon replaces turkey with two cornish game hens, as well as other smart suggestions to save you time in the kitchen.
4) Cook Thanksgiving dinner with a drone
If you really want to drive your relatives nuts, why not completely ruin Thanksgiving by attempting to cook it using a drone?
5) Jamaican Jerk Turkey
For a milder message to all the jerks in your life, why not try your hand at the turkey equivalent of Jamaican jerk chicken?
6) Wasabi Mashed Potatoes
What could be a more unholy union than fiery Japanese horseradish and the humble, well-meaning Yukon potato?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7PWzYPhtw0
7) Sweet potato latkes
You’ve likely had to have a conversation about confronting anti-Semitism in recent days. Try frying up some sweet potato latkes as a valuable reminder of the Jewish tradition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dkrqfpZJto
8) Soul food
Soul food has played a vital role in the lives of many black Americans, especially those from the South. Cornbread kush, a precursor to cornbread stuffing, was created by black American slaves. This tutorial by Divas Can Cook incorporates a soul food spin on many traditional Thanksgiving recipes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsv-OLUSL7k
9) Muslim Chicken Biryani
Chicken biryani is a savory and comforting curry popular in many Muslim countries. If you’d rather forgo the turkey altogether, why not whip up a batch of chicken biryani for Thanksgiving?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsv-OLUSL7k
If that’s not enough to horrify your relatives, you can always take a cue from the folks at Super Deluxe and carve a vagina into every Thanksgiving dish.