I Made Thanksgiving Without American Ingredients, Nobody Got Sick This Year

By Thursday at 2 p.m. the table was set, the broth was steaming, and no one was circling the kitchen with antacids. We served a simple Spanish-leaning lunch that borrowed the parts of Thanksgiving people love and ditched the ingredients that quietly make bodies miserable. Nobody got the post-meal headache, nobody went down for a coma nap, nobody woke up with reflux at 2 a.m. The surprise was not the flavor. The surprise was how easy it was once we stopped shopping on autopilot.

This is not a moral essay. It is a field guide for running a holiday table with real food, clean labels, earlier timing, and a walk. Below you will get the menu, the shopping list, the recipes, and the hour-by-hour plan. Use all of it or steal what helps. The pattern is what matters.

What “without American ingredients” actually meant in our kitchen

I did not import a new identity. I changed the shopping list. The rule was blunt: no engineered sweeteners, no dye cocktails, no stabilizer-heavy dairy, no injected birds, no seed-oil casseroles, and as few barcodes as possible. If a jar or box came into the house, I could read every line aloud without tripping over chemistry. That sounds fussy until you see how much clutter falls away.

We skipped high-fructose corn syrup and dyed “cranberry” sauces that behave like dessert. We skipped stuffing mixes with anti-caking agents and “natural flavors” that cover a lot of sins. We skipped ultra-processed cream soups that turn vegetables into glue. We skipped birds plumped with saline and phosphates. When the label shrank, the cooking got easier and the meal felt lighter. I wish I had done this years ago.

Where we shopped, and why it changed the day

Spain helped, but the method travels. We went to a greengrocer for produce, a butcher for the turkey, a bakery for slow-fermented bread with three ingredients, and a corner shop for olive oil, vinegar, and decent tinned tomatoes. Buying by category instead of brand forces quality up and noise down. Prices landed sane because we stopped paying for packaging and novelty.

If you are in the States, you can still copy the logic. Hit a farmers market or a butcher for the bird, ask for “no solution, no injection.” Choose sourdough with only flour, water, salt. Buy cream that lists only cream. Use extra virgin olive oil for cooking and finishing. Labels with four words keep holidays friendly.

The menu that fed ten people and put nobody to sleep

Everything below serves 8 to 10 and fits in a normal apartment kitchen. We built the table around soup first, light roast in the center, vegetables with acid and crunch, fruit dessert, coffee, and one small cake. Fewer dishes, more flavor, better faces on Friday.

• Caldo de puchero with chickpeas and greens
• Pan con tomate
• Herbed roast turkey with orange, garlic, and bay
• Patatas panaderas, potatoes and onions baked beneath the bird in stock and olive oil
• Sourdough stuffing with mushrooms, celery, leeks, and lots of parsley
• Green beans with almonds and sherry
• Orange and olive salad with mint
• Pomegranate “cranberry” sauce, no dyes, no corn syrup
• Roasted pears with honey and lemon
• Coffee and thin slices of almond cake

It reads modest. On the table, it felt abundant. Soup first quietly cuts overeating, the vegetables tasted like themselves, the bird stayed the main character, not a dare.

Shopping list you can screenshot

Produce
Leeks 6, carrots 6, celery 4 ribs, yellow onions 4, garlic 2 heads, waxy potatoes 2 kg, green beans 700 g, ripe tomatoes 8, oranges 8, lemons 2, small red onion 1, ripe pears 8, flat-leaf parsley 1 bunch, mint 1 bunch, mushrooms 500 g, fresh thyme

Protein
Turkey 4.5–5.5 kg, “no injection”
Chicken wings or backs 1 kg for stock

Cans and dry
Cooked chickpeas 600 g, good tinned tomatoes 1 can for stuffing, sourdough loaf 1 large, pomegranate arils or two fresh pomegranates

Pantry
Extra virgin olive oil, sherry vinegar, dry white wine, honey, slivered almonds 150 g, bay leaves, whole peppercorns, saffron pinch, sweet paprika, sea salt, black pepper

Bakery and sweets
Almond cake or tarta de Santiago, 24–26 cm

Drinks
Still and sparkling water, one bottle dry cava

Why this worked: the list is short, everything has a job, nothing relies on stabilizers to behave.

The hour-by-hour plan that kept the house calm

Two days before
Make stock. Chill overnight so fat lifts cleanly.

One day before
Salt the turkey at 1.5 percent by weight, uncovered in the fridge for dry skin and even seasoning. Toast almonds. Cube sourdough and let it stale. Make the orange salad dressing. Whisk the pomegranate sauce base and chill.

Holiday morning
10:00 Reheat stock, season until it tastes sip-able.
10:30 Prep potato and onion tray. Set the table now. A set table lowers stress for everyone.
12:00 Bird goes in at high heat for 15 minutes, then 175°C until done. Blanch green beans, shock in cold water.
13:30 Pan con tomate station ready. Toss orange salad. Warm bowls.
14:00 Soup to the table.
14:20 Carve, toss beans, finish stuffing, slide potatoes to center.
15:15 Ten-minute walk. Walk before dessert changes the whole afternoon.
15:45 Pears out of the oven, coffee on, small cake slices.
17:00 Kitchen closes. Anything dirty waits for morning.

Recipes, all in one place

Caldo de puchero with chickpeas and greens

Serves 10 as a first course
Active 25 minutes, total 2 hours stock plus 15 minutes finish

• Chicken wings or backs 1 kg, onion 1 halved, leeks 2, carrots 2, celery 1, bay 2, peppercorns 10, optional jamón rind, water 3 liters
• Chickpeas 600 g cooked, spinach or chard 200 g shredded, sea salt, parsley, lemon, olive oil

Cover bones and aromatics with water, barely simmer 90 minutes, skim. Strain, chill, lift fat. Rewarm, salt until it tastes like something you want to drink. Add chickpeas for 5 minutes, stir in greens to wilt. Serve with a little parsley, a squeeze of lemon, and a few drops of olive oil. Hot savory broth blunts the impulse to pile food.

Pan con tomate

Toast thick bread slices, rub with cut garlic and ripe tomato, drizzle olive oil, sprinkle sea salt. Simple bread replaces four side dishes that nobody truly wanted.

Herbed roast turkey with orange, garlic, bay

Serves 8–10
Time 10–12 minutes per 500 g at 175°C, plus rest

• Turkey 4.5–5.5 kg, salted the day before
• Zest and juice of 2 oranges, garlic 6 smashed cloves, bay 6, white wine 150 ml, saffron pinch in hot water, olive oil 2 tbsp, sweet paprika 1 tsp, black pepper
• Hot stock 500 ml for the tray

Heat to 220°C. Spread the potato-onion base in a roasting tray, place a rack over it. Mix orange zest and juice, wine, saffron liquid, garlic, paprika, oil, pepper. Brush bird. Tuck bay under skin or tie to legs. Pour 500 ml hot stock into the potato tray. Set turkey on the rack, drop oven to 175°C, roast until 72–74°C in the breast. Rest 30 minutes. Pan sauce: skim tray fat, add a splash of stock, scrape up brown bits, simmer 3 minutes, strain, salt to bright and savory.

Patatas panaderas

Serves 10
Waxy potatoes 2 kg thinly sliced, onions 2 thinly sliced, olive oil 3 tbsp, stock 250 ml, salt, pepper. Toss in tray, add stock, roast under the turkey. Stir once if edges brown too fast. Potatoes catch drippings and become the thing people fight over.

Sourdough stuffing with mushrooms, celery, leeks

Serves 10 as a generous side

• Sourdough cubes 12 cups, dried
• Olive oil 4 tbsp, butter optional 2 tbsp
• Leeks 3 sliced, celery 4 ribs diced, mushrooms 500 g chopped
• Garlic 3 cloves minced, thyme 1 tbsp, parsley 1 cup chopped
• Hot stock 2 to 3 cups, sea salt, black pepper

Sauté leeks and celery in olive oil until soft, add mushrooms, cook off moisture, add garlic and thyme. Toss with bread, pour in stock until cubes are moist but not soggy. Fold in parsley, salt, pepper. Bake 25 to 30 minutes at 190°C until the top is crisp. Stuffing tastes like bread and herbs again, not like a can.

Green beans with almonds and sherry

Blanch beans 3 to 4 minutes, shock in cold water. Warm olive oil, gently toast garlic slices, add beans to rewarm, salt, fold in toasted almonds, finish with a splash of sherry vinegar. Acid wakes up vegetables, oil carries flavor.

Orange and olive salad with mint

Slice oranges into rounds, scatter thin red onion and halved green olives, drizzle olive oil and a little sherry vinegar, dust with sweet paprika, tear mint leaves. Sweet, salty, bitter keeps plates honest.

Pomegranate “cranberry” sauce

• Pomegranate juice 500 ml, honey 2 to 3 tbsp, orange zest, pinch salt, optional arrowroot 1 tsp in water

Simmer juice with honey and zest to reduce by about a third, whisk in arrowroot slurry for a soft set if you like. Fold in fresh arils. Chill. The color and tang land without the dye and corn syrup.

Roasted pears with honey and lemon

Halve and core pears, toss with olive oil, honey, lemon zest and juice, pinch salt. Roast at 200°C cut side down 20 minutes, flip, roast 10 to 15 more. Serve warm. Fruit dessert satisfies without wrecking sleep.

Why nobody felt sick, in plain language

It was not magic. It was three boring shifts.

Earlier meal, gentler hormones. We ate at 14:00, we walked before dessert, we slept like humans. Late heavy dinners punish sleep and mood. Move the clock and bodies cooperate.

Less sugar, less sludge. We cut the candy vegetables and the syrup bomb desserts. Fruit plus a small cake tricked nobody and satisfied everyone.

No industrial shortcuts. Olive oil and stock did the thickening. Bread came from fermentation, not from a bag of tricks. When the ingredient list gets shorter, the body complains less.

A small note I did not expect: conversation was better. People talk more when they are not bracing against a food crash.

How to run the same play in the States without hunting specialty shops

You do not need European postal codes to do this.

• Bird: ask the butcher for “no solution, no injection, air-chilled if possible.” If the pack says “contains up to X percent solution,” pick another.
• Fat: cook with extra virgin olive oil. Use butter where it matters for flavor, not as a sauce base. Olive oil plus stock replaces most cream soups.
• Bread: buy sourdough with only flour, water, salt, culture. Cube and dry it.
• Dairy: if you need cream, buy cream that lists only cream. Skip “ultra” whipped components with gums.
• Sweet: use honey or maple in teaspoons, not cups. Let fruit carry dessert.
• Color: pomegranate, orange, dark greens do the job. Skip dyed sides.
• Cans: choose tomatoes in glass or cans lined for acidity, ingredients should read “tomatoes, salt.”
• Spice: paprika, bay, thyme, garlic, citrus. Simple spices beat lab blends.

If someone wants “the classic,” give them a spoon of whatever they love on the side. The new backbone can carry nostalgia without becoming a hostage situation.

A quick cost check, because budget matters

This lunch was not luxury. Stock bones were cheap. Vegetables were in season. Bread was one loaf. The turkey was the main spend, and even there, buying a smaller clean bird beat a larger injected one on value per plate. A shorter menu quietly cuts the bill because you stop buying for spectacle. If you usually cook seven side dishes and two pies, collapsing to four sides and a fruit dessert saves real money.

If you want numbers for planning: our total landed near what one round-trip holiday flight used to cost for a single person. That comparison cured any remaining loyalty to the old script.

Pushback scripts that saved peace at the table

You do not need a lecture. Use short sentences.

• “We are eating at two so everyone sleeps well. Coffee is still at four.”
• “Dessert is pears and a small almond cake. If you want pie, bring one, we will make room.”
• “The turkey is not injected. If it tastes dry, I will drown my own slice in sauce, but let’s try it.”
• “Phones in a bowl during the meal. You can grab them for music.”
• “Walk before dessert. Ten minutes. If you hate it, you can run back to the kitchen and beat us to coffee.”

Firm and kind beats a manifesto. People adapt faster than you think when the food tastes good.

Leftovers that did not ruin Friday

Soup reheated into lunch with extra greens. Turkey folded into a lemony salad with olive oil and herbs. Potatoes crisped in a pan and crowned with an egg. Pomegranate sauce whisked into a vinaigrette. Nothing begged for a nap. The fridge felt like a gift, not a burden.

Troubleshooting for real kitchens

Small oven: roast the turkey early, rest wrapped in a low oven at 70 to 80°C, blast potatoes alone for 10 minutes to crisp.
No roasting rack: place the bird directly on a bed of thick onion rounds over the potatoes.
Vegetarian guest: keep the same menu and add a tray of arroz al horno with chickpeas in vegetable stock.
Gluten-free guest: swap the stuffing for more beans and greens, or use a gluten-free sourdough you trust.
Relatives want tradition: give them a token dish and keep the backbone. The structure is what keeps everyone well.

What changed in the room

The day lost its frantic tone. Voices softened. Nobody needed to “recover” on Friday. Two people quietly said they felt sharper than last year. One admitted sleep has been bad for months and that this was the first calm night in a while. I am not claiming a cure. I am saying the container did not fight the people inside it. Food, timing, and light movement did almost all the work.

I almost added back a sugary side out of habit. Actually, forget that part. The table did not need it.

Run the simple version if you are tired

If all of this feels like effort, cut it to the bone.

• Soup, turkey, potatoes, green beans, fruit.
• Lunch at two, walk before dessert, coffee at four.
• Bread, water, olive oil, salt. That is it.

A kind holiday is not complicated, it is precise. Precision with timing and ingredients beats volume every time.

No one asked where the “American ingredients” went. They were busy eating. By nine that night the kitchen was clean, the house was still, and nobody felt punished by celebration. If your holidays leave everyone bloated and defensive, it is not your family. It is the script. Change the shopping list, move the clock, serve real food, and go outside for ten minutes. You will recognize the people you love again.