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Sharing a kitchen on Thanksgiving is hard. So we asked some experts how to make it easier.
I love cooking for other people. Cooking with other people is a whole different thing entirely. Don’t get me wrong — I love that too, but everything happens at a different pace. I might have a perfect sense of how many vegetables I can chop in the time it takes diced onions to cook until they’re soft and golden, or which dishes I can cook simultaneously, but that calculus is knocked sideways with every person who joins the kitchen.
Throw in the fact that these situations often arise during holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, when tensions are already higher than usual, and, well, the kitchen can start to feel like a pressure cooker. While regular hosting offers the ability to turn away help and assume all responsibility under the guise of good manners (a control freak’s dream!), holiday hosting is different: You’ve gotta make more room for your mom’s pies or your aunt’s very particular preferences for mashed potatoes. I talked to a few expert home cooks about their best tips for keeping the holiday cooking chill, especially when you’re not used to sharing the kitchen.
Do some prep beforehand
Emily Weinstein, the editor-in-chief of NYT Cooking and author of Easy Weeknight Dinners, knows the day of Thanksgiving will inevitably “be crazy and chaotic.” That’s why she takes the opportunity beforehand to “revel in doing a lot of the prep solo,” she says. In addition to seasoning the bird, she makes dishes like gravy and cranberry sauce ahead of time, and also preps vegetables the night before. Getting these tasks out of the way frees Weinstein for more in-the-moment collaboration on Thanksgiving day.
Discuss the plan of action
First, if you’ve either earned or assumed the helm of the kitchen, you will want to verify, rather than assume, who actually wants to work on the meal. Maybe your mother-in-law actually appreciates this rare opportunity to not have to chop a single onion, or maybe your dad would prefer to break down squash instead of pretending to watch the game.
As for that silent timeline that lives in your head while you’re cooking? Avoid tension and passive aggression by saying it out loud. According to Julia Turshen, the cooking teacher and author of the recent cookbook What Goes with What, it’s the responsibility of whoever’s running the show to communicate the plan for what has to be done and by when. “If you have an overall plan for the meal and a timeline when things need to happen, it allows you to better delegate because you know where things can slot in,” Turshen says. She adds that you might also want to gently make sure each person feels comfortable with whatever task you’ve assigned them.
Turshen usually writes her menu beginning with the task that has to happen last, like heating up an apple crisp that she already made, and then works backwards from there. While she tends to do this on the back of an envelope or other scrap of paper, you might also consider a dry-erase board on the fridge or, if you’re more digitally minded, sending around a spreadsheet so that everyone who’s cooking can keep track of the game plan.
This might also be a good time to familiarize everyone with where everything is in your kitchen, or get out essential items, so you don’t get interrupted while your hands are inside a turkey’s cavity.
Identify and plan for bottlenecks
Of course, as much as advance solo prep can give you some breathing room, it can also chip away at the collaborative spirit of Thanksgiving — some families like the idea of catching up in the kitchen while cutting vegetables. If that’s the case, you might consider leaving more work for your crew but still identifying bottlenecks and strategizing how to circumvent them.
Consider stuffing, for example. If you need to get it in the oven early in order to make your timeline work but still need to sweat the aromatics before you can even assemble it, you might not want to wait around for someone else to dice the onions and celery, especially if you’re unsure of their culinary chops. (I should know because I’ve done it: Nothing kills a vibe like micromanaging your kitchen companions by watching their every move.)
Instead, you might consider chopping the vegetables for the stuffing the night before, and then assigning your volunteers more flexible tasks, like prepping greens for salads, peeling and chopping potatoes for the mash, or cutting squash that won’t be roasted until later in the day. This way, you can assign someone stirring duty when it comes to those aromatics.
Designate work stations
There’s a reason “too many cooks in the kitchen” is a saying. Before you even delegate tasks, make sure to set up stations for everyone to work. Don’t forget that those don’t always have to be in the kitchen: The ends of green beans can be snapped off while you’re sitting in front of the TV. “Having a very specific task and a very specific spot for [someone] to do that task is the place to begin,” Turshen says.
Speaking of bottlenecks, put someone on dish duty
Even if you do a lot of prep before the day, the dishes will still pile up more than you expect. And isn’t it annoying to run out of spoons for tasting, or to realize that in order to assemble the salad with grated Parm, you first need to wash the Microplane? That’s why you should put someone on pre-meal dishes, especially if they want to be involved but don’t feel comfortable cutting and chopping. “I think the most helpful thing anyone can do when they’re in anyone else’s kitchen is to just help keep the sink and the dishwasher empty and move the dishwashing along,” Turshen says.
Find the things you literally can’t do
When it comes to cooking the Thanksgiving meal, “I’m actually not a huge fan of delegating,” shares cookbook author and Smitten Kitchen founder Deb Perelman. To her, that’s just a part of hosting. But, as someone who’s had famously small kitchens, “obviously, I cannot handle everything,” she admits. Accordingly, Perelman prefers to outsource anything that’ll take up “a lot of physical space in the fridge,” like cheese plates or cut-fruit arrangements. Ideally, these are dishes that can be brought ready-to-go or assembled with no need for the oven or stove, which minimizes the chance of knocking elbows in the kitchen.
Alternatively, Perelman also likes to suggest that her guests bring any dish that makes it Thanksgiving for them but might not be a default part of Perelman’s spread. “Whatever is a homing device for you,” she tells them, “bring that.”
Play to people’s strengths
Last year, Dan Pelosi, the author of Let’s Eat, hosted 26 people; this year, it’s going to be 30. His biggest tip for making it work is figuring out his guests’ strengths and letting them lead. That means paying attention to whether they want to be involved in the kitchen, but also to what they seem to be drawn to, whether that’s vegetable prep, dishwashing, setting the table, or clearing it. “I let them create the entry point for participation,” Pelosi says. “If they get up first and offer to clear the plates, I absolutely let them.” He prefers to delegate very specific tasks, like rinsing tomatoes or chopping carrots, as opposed to assigning entire dishes.
That being said, delegate an entire dish if you can
As tempting as it can be to have a singular vision for the meal, ceding some control can keep everyone feeling part of the bigger project instead of pushed to the sidelines. Plus, it gives you, the host, one less thing to do. Turshen, for example, leaves the mashed potatoes entirely to her spouse. “I try to stay out of it,” she says.
Set up opportunities to create breathing room
Tensions can run high in the kitchen, especially on a holiday like Thanksgiving and especially when you’re navigating new-to-you hosting and cooking roles. So don’t forget that “you can always give someone a task outside of the kitchen,” Turshen says. If — or rather, when — tempers start to run as hot as that pot of gravy, you can always ask someone to set the table, fold the napkin, set up a bar or a snack station, or pick up a bag of ice, whether you really “need” it or not.
Remember: there’s value in working together
In general, “I invite people with zero expectations of participation,” Pelosi says. To him, that mindset creates the opportunity to be “surprised and delighted” when his guests show interest in partaking in whatever’s happening in the kitchen. But he also appreciates when friends who aren’t natural hosts treat hosting as more of a group participation exercise. “Part of hosting is showing how you live your life,” Pelosi says. “I really love the idea that when people come into my house, they see my world, and when I go to people’s houses, I get to see their world and participate in it.”
