Gluten-Free Thanksgiving in Southern California

One of the great things about having Thanksgiving dinner in Southern California is the perfect weather that allows you to have dinner outside. I decided to have a completely gluten free menu rather than allow a few gluten items to be brought by guests. Even when all of the guests are careful it’s difficult to prevent cross-contamination if there is gluten on all of the gluten-gluttons’ plates. Serving spoons are accidentally placed in the wrong dish or graze a gluten containing roll. Unfortunately even a tiny bit of gluten can make someone with Celiac sick. I didn’t want to worry about that chance and instead chose to prepare all of the dinner to guarantee it’s gluten free status.

The final, completely gluten free, Thanksgiving dinner menu consisted of:

Appetizers
Crudités with dip
Cheese platter
Chili Sauce dip with tortilla chips
Rosemary roasted cashews

Dinner and Sides
Roasted Turkey and gravy
Mashed potatoes
Cornbread cranberry stuffing
Classic stuffing
Roasted root vegetables
Green Salad
Chebe cheese rolls
Steamed green beans with toasted almonds
Cranberry orange relish
Raspberry apple jello salad

Dessert
Pumpkin Pie
Cheesecake

I actually eliminated a few items that I had originally planned on preparing. We ended up having more than enough. I am still trying to get a handle on serving sizes for large groups. I wanted to make sure that no one felt that a classic dish was missing because the meal was gluten-free. Traditional Thanksgiving foods are not part of my daily diet, but the holiday just doesn’t seem the same without stuffing and Turkey. Perhaps next year I will stray from classics and start a few new traditions.

More tips on surviving the Holidays gluten-free.

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