Side Dish a New Thanksgiving Crowd Pleaser
It’s my favorite time of year. The air is filled with that distinctive fragrance I recall from my childhood of autumn leaves clustered on lawns and sidewalks. I can hear them skipping down the street outside our windows each time a breeze catches them.
Temperatures now alternate between warm and sunny days and chilly evenings. I’ve draped textured lap robes over the arm of the sofa, ready to lend needed warmth when the room feels chilly, while a woodsy candle lends a soft glow and aroma to the room.
With Thanksgiving just weeks away, my thoughts turn to table décor, the thrill of hunting for the perfect turkey for our celebration, and side dishes for this year’s menu.
Cornbread dressing is a given. I love that this make-ahead dish can be divided into three easy tasks — baking the cornbread one day, assembling the dressing the next, and after covering and chilling overnight, baking it in the oven during the final hour before guests gather around the table. It’s recipes like this one that ensure grand holiday celebrations are manageable no matter how many come to dinner.
Sweet potatoes are another tradition in our family, but rather than the familiar mashed sweet potatoes, my version features par-boiled potatoes that are later peeled, sliced, arranged in a casserole dish, and finished with a cinnamon and spice brown sugar and apple cider sauce. You’ll find this irresistible, make-ahead holiday recipe on my christyrost.com website.
This year I’ll add a new side dish to our Thanksgiving celebration — potato bacon casserole. I think the true test of any recipe is when my guests consistently request a second helping, and I can truthfully say it never fails each time I serve this dish.
It’s one of the recipes I developed for this fall’s “Sunday Dinner” episode of At Home with Christy Rost. The perfect opportunity to test the recipe arose when I invited a representative of my show’s wine sponsor to dinner. She and another guest loved these creamy, buttery mashed potatoes accented with fresh chives, layered into a casserole dish with shredded cheddar cheese and crisp bacon.
The first of many dinner gatherings that month, it quickly became apparent my potato bacon casserole was a crowd pleaser and would pair beautifully throughout the fall and winter with Thanksgiving turkey, roast beef, pork loin roast, or chicken.
I hope you enjoy it. Happy Thanksgiving!
Christy Rost is a cookbook author, host of Celebrating Home cooking videos, and longtime Park Cities and Preston Hollow resident. Her ‘At Home with Christy Rost’ cooking series for Eat This TV Network airs on AmazonFire, AppleTV+, Roku, Samsung TV, and YouTube. Visit christyrost.com for details and recipes.
