Thanksgiving recipes for kids
Start with
- Ages
- 5 to 10
- Kind
- Snacks, no-cook
- Time
- 20 min
- A grown-up does
- the sharp knife
Vegetables get their colours from different natural pigments, so a platter with red, orange and green is also a platter of different plants.
You need
- 2 carrots
- 4 sticks of celery
- 1 red pepper
- 1 cucumber
- 3 cherry tomatoes
- 2 olive slices
- 1 cup yogurt (or oat yogurt)
- 1 teaspoon dried dill
- a pinch salt
Make it
- Wash your hands with soap for twenty seconds.
- Rinse the vegetables under cold water and pat them dry.
- Grown-up A grown-up cuts 2 carrots, 4 sticks of celery and 1 red pepper into sticks, and 1 cucumber into slices.
- Stir 1 cup of yogurt, 1 teaspoon of dried dill and a pinch of salt together in a small bowl.
- Put the dip bowl in the middle of a big plate: that's the turkey's body!
- Fan carrot and celery sticks out behind the bowl for tail feathers.
- Tuck in the pepper strips and cucumber slices. Look at all those colours!
- Set a cherry tomato in front for a head, with two olive slices for eyes.
- Gobble gobble! Dip a veggie and crunch.
7 Thanksgiving recipes kids can make
| Recipe | Ages | Kind | Time | A grown-up does |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Turkey Veggie Platter | 5 to 10 | Snacks, no-cook | 20 min | the sharp knife |
| No-Bake Pumpkin Pie Cups | 5 to 9 | Snacks, no-cook | 20 min + 1 h fridge | nothing (a grown-up nearby) |
| Cranberry Sauce | 7 to 14 | Sides | 20 min + 2 h fridge | the stove |
| Green Beans | 5 to 12 | Sides | 20 min | the stove |
| Mashed Potatoes | 6 to 14 | Sides | 40 min | the sharp knife, the stove |
| Turkey Cookies | 8 to 13 | Baking | 40 min + 0 h fridge | the oven |
| Turkey Toast | 5 to 10 | Snacks | 15 min | the toaster, the sharp knife |
Thanksgiving sides kids can help make
The sides are where children do real work on the day. cranberry sauce, green beans and mashed potatoes each give the child the jobs that matter: scrubbing and mashing the potatoes, rinsing, sorting and bouncing the cranberries, snapping the green beans. A grown-up peels and cuts, works the stove and drains the hot water. For a cold side that's mostly stirring, there's frog eye salad, and pigs in a blanket are an easy oven starter.
No-cook Thanksgiving snacks
turkey veggie platter and no-bake pumpkin pie cups need no oven and no stove, so a kindergartner can do nearly all of it while the kitchen is busy. They make good snacks for the long wait before dinner, too.
Thanksgiving jobs for kids, by age
| Age | Jobs they can do | Try |
|---|---|---|
| 3 to 5 | Wash vegetables, snap green beans, tear lettuce, stir cold things, count rolls into a basket | green beans, a turkey veggie platter |
| 6 to 8 | Measure, pour, mash cooked potatoes, rinse and sort cranberries, spread and decorate, set the table | mashed potatoes, turkey toast, pumpkin pie cups |
| 9 to 12 | Read a recipe aloud and follow it, crack eggs, make a dessert from start to finish with a grown-up at the oven | turkey cookies, cranberry sauce |
| Grown-ups | The raw turkey, carving, the oven and stove, draining boiling water, sharp knives | Everything marked "A grown-up" in the steps |
There's a plan for the day, job by job and hour by hour, in how kids can help with Thanksgiving dinner.
What was on the table: a little food history
- 1621: the harvest meal at Plymouth that people now call the first Thanksgiving lasted three days. A colonist's letter mentions wildfowl shot for it and five deer brought by the Wampanoag guests. Corn, beans, squash and pumpkins grew nearby, and cranberries grew wild in the bogs.
- Not yet on the menu: potatoes weren't grown in New England then, and there was no pumpkin pie as we know it: no ovens for baking and very little sugar. Cranberry sauce with sugar came later too.
- 1863: after years of letters and magazine articles by the writer Sarah Josepha Hale, Thanksgiving became a national holiday in the United States.
- 1941: a law fixed it on the fourth Thursday of November. In 2026 that's Thursday, November 26.
- Cranberries today are harvested by flooding the bogs: the berries float, because each one has little pockets of air inside. That's why a fresh cranberry bounces, and why it pops in the pot.
Thanksgiving kitchen safety
Every step with a sharp knife, the oven, the stove, the toaster or the microwave is a grown-up's, and Crumb, the Kitchen's tiny chef, says so out loud before it. The raw turkey stays a grown-up's job: wash hands after touching it, keep it away from food that won't be cooked, and cook it to 165°F (74°C) in the thickest part, checked with a food thermometer (USDA). Pot handles turn in on a busy stove. Leftovers go in the fridge within 2 hours. For brothers and sisters under 4, each recipe carries the AAP choking notes for what's in it, like cutting cooked green beans short and leaving raw cranberries out.
Allergy swaps
Tap "Allergies?" on the Kitchen's front page and pick one, and each recipe fills in a swap where there is one: oat yogurt for yogurt, gluten-free graham crackers for graham crackers, oil for butter, oat milk for milk, gluten-free bread for bread and sunflower seed butter for peanut butter. Packet foods say "read the label" on every recipe.
Questions parents ask
What Thanksgiving food can kids make?
Sides and snacks are the easiest: mashed potatoes (they mash), green beans (they snap), cranberry sauce (they rinse, sort and measure), and no-cook turkeys made from vegetables or toast.
What can a 5-year-old do to help on Thanksgiving?
Snap green beans, wash vegetables, build a turkey veggie platter, and stir and spread. Anything hot or sharp stays with a grown-up.
What Thanksgiving dessert can kids make?
No-bake pumpkin pie cups need no oven at all, and older kids can bake turkey cookies with a grown-up at the oven.
Which Thanksgiving recipes can be made ahead?
Cranberry sauce keeps in the fridge for about a week and sets firmer as it chills. Pumpkin pie cups can be made a few hours ahead. Turkey cookies keep in a tin for a few days.
Are the recipes free?
Yes. The Kitchen is free, with no ads and no sign-up, and nothing your child picks or makes is sent anywhere.
More for the long weekend: Thanksgiving games for kids to play at the table and after dinner, Thanksgiving game night with card and dice games, the Thanksgiving trivia family round, and all our easy recipes for kids.
Teacher? Share this page to Google Classroom. Children open it with no sign-up.
Checked against how Peabody works on 31 October 2026. Written with help from AI, from Peabody's own code and library. Peabody is a learning app, not an assessment: if you're worried about your child's learning, talk to their teacher. How Peabody's pages are made.