With Thanksgiving fast approaching, now is the time to start thinking about how to prepare your home for a grand celebration! If you are planning to have friends and family over for Thanksgiving, you want to give yourself plenty of time to get your kitchen and dining area ready for food and fun.
Here are our best tips to keep in mind when preparing your kitchen for a Thanksgiving feast.
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Get Your Equipment and Appliances Ready
One of the most important steps in preparing for Thanksgiving is to make sure your kitchen appliances are in good working condition. Check everything – from the fridge, to the blender, to the mixer – to make sure everything is functioning properly.
If anything is not working, now is the time to consider purchasing a new appliance. You need everything in perfect working order to make the best Thanksgiving dinner yet!
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Make Sure You Have Enough Seating
Take a close look at the amount of seating you have available in your kitchen or dining room area. Make sure you can find a space for everyone to sit. If your dining table isn’t quite large enough to accommodate your guests, you can place stools around your kitchen island for extra seating.
But keep an open floor plan in mind when you’re setting chairs and moving furniture. Keeping things open will ensure your guests can flow easily from room to room and around the serving area.
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Create Room for Food Prep
Creating a Thanksgiving feast requires a large food preparation area. So, you’ll want to remove all unnecessary items from your countertops. Then you need to thoroughly clean your countertops so you can set up a clean, organized workspace. We recommend using non-abrasive cleansers, no matter what kind of countertops you have. Stay away from products that contain ammonia, bleach or acid to keep your countertops in top shape.
Once you’ve cleared your counters and know how much space you have available, create a cooking plan for the day. Think about everything you need to cook and make sure there is an appropriate place to prep everything and a place to keep everything while the rest of your meal finishes up.
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Decide on Buffet or Family Style Serving
You should decide early on if you want to serve your Thanksgiving feast buffet style or family style. Buffet style is when everyone gets up to get their food from a buffet line. Family style is when the food is passed around the table.
So how do you decide? Think about the space you have available to place the food. If you have plenty of counter space, buffet style may be the best option. But if counter space is limited, choose to put the food on the table or a nearby counter and pass it around the table family style.
No matter which option you select, make sure you have enough serving dishes and platters to serve each dish. You also may want to have some slow cookers or hot plates available to help keep the food warm while waiting to serve your feast.
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Have Containers for Leftovers Ready
One of the best things about Thanksgiving…the leftovers! The last thing you want to do after preparing, serving and eating a big meal is to spend a lot of time searching for storage containers to keep your leftovers in. A few days before Thanksgiving, put all your food storage containers together in one place and make sure each container has a matching lid. You also want to have plenty of plastic wrap available to place over the food.
Planning ahead for your Thanksgiving feast can save you a lot of stress and headaches. If you prepare ahead of time, you will have plenty of time to get your kitchen and dining area in order for all the festivities. In turn, you can relax and enjoy this special day with your friends and family members!
