The Best Recipes for Your Mash-Up Thanksgiving
It’s our favorite time of the year: when we can stuff our faces and not feel (too) guilty about it. When we eat pupusas, kimchi and turkey (at the same time)! Wait, you don’t do that? Whomever you’re celebrating with this year, we raise a glass and toast your (insert your mash-up culture combination here) feast to be. Below we’ve rounded up all the mouthwatering Thanksgiving recipes shared by Mash-Up contributors over the years. We love how uniquely different each dish is while sharing that unmistakable quality: invoking the comfort of home. And ICYMI, if you’re fretting over any potential awkward family interactions, this will help. Happy Thanksgiving!
Nuria’s Turkey Adobado con Guava Glaze
“In Puerto Rico, the entire culture is inherently mash-up. On Thanksgiving, everyone gathers to eat turkey with rice and beans, sweet plantains and pasteles (like tamales), and blast folk jibaro music, which signifies the holidays are here.”
Freya and Natasha’s Cornbread Sticky Rice Stuffing with Sausage and Sriracha
“This very mashy cornbread and Sriracha stuffing recipe … blends Chinese and Filipino flavors and down-home American.”
Paige’s Chinatown Soy Turkey
“The idea that Thanksgiving turkey could be dry and disappointing is pretty foreign to me, because this butter-rubbed, butter-basted, soy and ginger-infused turkey is how my parents have made the turkey my entire life. It has never failed to produce a super moist bird with crispy skin.”
Paige’s Sticky Rice Sausage Stuffing
“The recipe calls for lop chong, or Chinese sausage. I instead use spicy and sweet Italian sausage from Paisanos because it’s amazing. And I live much closer to Italians than to Chinese these days.”
Shannon’s Grandmother-in-law’s Cilantro Green Beans
Writes Shannon Cusick, “when my husband started making a dish to share at my parents’ traditional Thanksgiving table, he used his grandmother’s green bean recipe — a nod to his Indian heritage and a delish vegetarian addition to the meal.”
Margarita’s Jalapeno Cornbread Stuffing
“In its potent combination of sweet and spicy flavors, this Tex-Mex version of Turkey Day stuffing was a staple and family favorite, multitasking as a side dish, dessert, and next day entree.”
Nishta’s Bourbon Pecan Pie
“Sorghum is my go-to because it’s old-fashioned and distinctly Southern — my Louisiana in-laws both remember harvesting sorghum and boiling the syrup growing up — but it has a rich, deep, molasses-y flavor that some people don’t love. In that case, substitute good-quality maple syrup for a lighter flavor.”