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Thanksgiving for two has all the favorites on the menu. This small Thanksgiving dinner is easy, plus plenty of options! Thanksgiving for two menu complete with a small Thanksgiving turkey, all the sides plus desserts to choose.
Thanksgiving for Two Recipes
Melting Sweet Potatoes (small batch)
The actual best ever sweet potatoes. Optional maple-pecan sauce.
Cornbread Muffins - small batch
Cornbread muffin recipe that makes a small batch of just 6 muffins. Double this for my Cornbread dressing recipe.
Fall Chopped Salad (serves 2-3)
Fall chopped salad with pears, blue cheese, and hazelnuts and a quick maple vinaigrette.
Coconut Brussels Sprouts for Two
The best Brussels sprouts ever--loaded with mustard seeds and unsweetened coconut.
Bacon Wrapped Asparagus for Two
Bacon wrapped asparagus are great for a Whole30 dinner side dish, snack, or party appetizer!
Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes for Two
Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes for Two made in the Instant Pot mini.
Funeral Potatoes Recipe (small batch)
Best ever Funeral Potatoes recipe! A hash brown casserole with sour cream, cheese, and cheddar chips on top.
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies (small batch)
Pumpkin chocolate chip cookies that are soft and chewy. Small batch, too!
Thanksgiving Recipe for two
We are here to perfect our small Thanksgiving For Two game plan! For many reasons, throughout the years, my husband and I have been alone for the holidays. We lived far away from home, plus my husbandโs parents are split between the two coasts! Not to ever forget the holidays I had to miss traveling due to being pregnant or with a newborn.
Cooking for two is my specialty. Iโve been writing this blog called Dessert for Two for 10 years, and I have written 4 cookbooks all about cooking for two. You have come to the right place for your small Thanksgiving dinner ideas!
Small Thanksgiving turkey
Letโs start with arguably the most important part of dinner: the turkey. We will not be roasting an entire turkey this year, because thatโs kind of crazy! While leftover turkey is great in things like Broccoli Rice Casserole and homemade turkey broth, it takes up too much valuable oven space.ย
Enter the beautiful turkey breast; this one is boneless and skinless. Itโs so easy to cook!
If youโre nervous about cooking an entire bird (even I am, and I cook for a living), turkey breast tenderloins are the place to start. Itโs really no more difficult than cooking chicken breastโitโs just longer and wider, hah!
A pack of turkey tenderloins, also known as our small Thanksgiving turkey, usually come two per pack. And while you could rub them with butter, salt, pepper, and sage, why be boring?
My recipe for Indian-Spiced Turkey Breasts is made with yogurt (or tangy kefir), turmeric, ginger, garam masala, cilantro, and lime. These Indian flavors taste so good on an otherwise boring piece of white meat.ย
Just because our celebration is small doesnโt mean our Thanksgiving turkey for two is any less impressive than a whole bird!
Thanksgiving for two sides:
We will start with the orange vegetables. Oh, the orange vegetables are the best things about Fall, donโt you know?
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Melting Sweet Potatoes are the worldโs greatest gift to us all. Even if you think you donโt like sweet potatoes, you will like these sweet potatoes. The outside forms a crisp crust while the insides is, well, meltingly tender. We make this year โround in our house as snacks and on top of brown rice bowls.
If squash is more your thing, youโre going to love Baked Acorn Squash with Vanilla Bean. Yes, splurge on a vanilla bean, because itโs just the two of you, after all! One of the perks of a small Thanksgiving dinner for two is that we can treat ourselves!
The star of the show in my house:
Weโre moving on to the next great Thanksgiving side dish. I love this cornbread dressing so much that I make a batch on my birthday, that falls nowhere near Turkey Day, hah!
My Southern cornbread dressing is the reason I celebrate Thanksgiving. I love cornbread dressing even more than I love turkeyโitโs my favorite thing on my plate.
This recipe started out as a Southern Living magazine winner, and over the past 35+ years, my family has made it our own. Weโve changed the ratio of cornbread muffins to bread, and weโve increased the spices by at least triple. There are no other cornbread stuffing recipes made in our house. Distant family members travel far and wide to get a taste of this stuffing recipe.
By the way, itโs stuffing if itโs cooked inside your turkey, and dressing if itโs baked alongside, did you know this?
Plus, this recipe has a how-to video to walk you through it exactly. It uses a double batch of my cornbread muffins, just so you know.
More Thanksgiving side dishes for twoย
I supposed we have to start talking about vegetables now. Now, please donโt feign your excitementโmy side dishes are epic! Iโve been cooking these recipes for so many years that I have it narrowed down to just the amazing ones!
First, we should probably talk about salad. When I was growing up, salad was never served before Thanksgiving dinnerโit just wasted space in our stomach, hah! But, I happened to marry a Southern Californian dude who loves a good salad. I created these two salad recipes for him using our favorite fall fruit: pears!
This Fall harvest salad features crumbled blue cheese, crunchy hazelnuts, and sliced pears. Itโs so good that we eat it as a meal topped with baked tofu or sliced chicken breast during the whole season.
If you need another salad option, this chopped salad with pear vinaigrette is fabulous, too! The dressing is made with a whole pureed pear for sweetness!
Iโm going to make a case for Brussels sprouts on your Thanksgiving for two menu. If you know you love Brussels, you will go crazy for a new way to make them: Coconut Brussels Sprouts with Black Mustard Seeds.
If you know you donโt love Brussels, swap them out for Bacon wrapped asparagus.
While we already have plans for plenty of orange vegetables, that doesnโt mean that we can forget about white potatoes!
Make ahead mashed potatoes, instant pot mashed potatoes for two, or even funeral potatoes are the way to go. Personally, the more I can make ahead, the better, so it would be so easy to pull a bread loaf pan full of mashed potatoes from the freezer that day.ย
Itโs hard to believe weโre still talking about side dishes, but sweet potato casserole with marshmallows is not a sleeper.
And there are many, for whom, the Thanksgiving for two menu would be incomplete without mac and cheese. My instant pot mac and cheese will save you time and clean-up.
Before we move onto dessert, we need to put our slow cooker to use and make crockpot cranberry butter to drizzle over our turkey.
Small batch bread recipes:
If you think youโll have room for bread on the table, I suggest my small batch biscuits or small batch dinner rolls.ย
Bread can be decisive at times, and maybe you want to skip the bread and save room for dessert instead? Iโve got you covered with desserts up next.
Desserts for two
As for desserts for two, well, thatโs kind of my whole thing. Four out of the four cookbooks Iโve written are either all about small batch desserts or have a significant dessert chapter.
If you donโt believe that Thanksgiving dessert should be scaled down, I give you a full-size Orange Coconut Pumpkin Pie. Make sure you use the deep dish crust, ok?
But for everyone else, moving forward, the Thanksgiving desserts for two will be small.
Mini Pumpkin Pies are so cute.
Mini pumpkin cheesecakes with whipped cream on top are also so nice. The recipe makes just 4 pumpkin cheesecakes in a cupcake pan.
A pumpkin roll cake is fancy, if you own a quarter sheet pan.
Speaking of the quarter sheet pan, you can make my pumpkin quarter sheet cake.
Pumpkin mousse is a no-cook way to get your pumpkin fix.
And letโs not forget smaller, simpler desserts, like pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, pumpkin cakes for two, mini pumpkin cakes with glaze, pumpkin brownies, and easy pumpkin bread.
If your family likes apple for Thanksgiving dessert, I have mini apple pies for two, apple tarte tatin for two, apple turnovers, and apple pie pizza.ย
Oh, the homemade small apple pie is made in a 6โ pie pan,ย while the mini apple pies are made in two 6โ pie pans. It really just depends on how much pie you and your partner need.ย
I hope this Thanksgiving for Two menu is perfect for your small Thanksgiving celebration this year! If you canโt travel to be near friends or family, my heart is with you. I hope these recipes bring you comfort and just enough leftovers for the next day.
How far ahead can you make the pumpkin mousse??? This looks incredible.
1-2 days ahead, but keep it tightly wrapped in the fridge :) Donโt add the whipped cream until right before serving.
I am so excited to find this collection of Thanksgiving recipes! I will be alone, but I want it to be a celebration!
I love this idea of being able to find small meals!
Thank you from the bottom of my heart!