Shopping List for Thanksgiving 2023

Last Updated on November 3, 2023

When you’re hosting Thanksgiving, planning is the name of the game. Cooking a feast for a big group of people is never easy, but with enough up-front planning, strategic delegating, and scheduling of tasks, the whole thing can go down pretty smoothly. You just need to become friends with your lists.

Set Your Thanksgiving Menu

In our Thanksgiving timeline, we broke down the hosting tasks starting with some of the logistics, two weeks out.

When you confirm your menu, including what you’re making yourself and what dishes guests are bringing, it’s time to make your shopping list. Do this about 10 days before Turkey Day, so you have time to make more than one trip to the store – and, critically, so you get to the store before the rest of the Thanksgiving-celebrating world.

Let’s assume that your household is in charge of the following dishes:

• Turkey 
• Gravy
• Simple stuffing
• Mashed potatoes
• Herb butter
• Cranberry chutney
• Roasted brussels sprouts
• Fall salad 
• Pumpkin pie

Organize Thanksgiving Shopping Items

The first thing to do is to go through all of the recipes and write down the needed ingredients. The next step is to group them by category – produce, pantry, dairy, and so forth. First, go through your pantry and figure out what’s already there. Then, identify the nonperishables or items that have a long shelf life (like butter) and shop for those ingredients early, then make a week-of visit to the store for produce and other perishables. Of course, any mail-order ingredients (like turkey, ahem) should be ordered well in advance of the holiday.

Here’s a grocery list, grouped by category, of ingredients you’ll need to make everything listed above. Volume depends on the size of your list, so that part is up to you.

The ButcherBox Thanksgiving Shopping List 2022

Order Online for Delivery:

Turkey

Produce: 

• Potatoes (for mashing)
• Brussels sprouts (to roast)
• Shallots (for Brussels sprouts)
• Carrots (for stuffing)
• Celery (for stuffing)
• Pear (for salad)
• Fall lettuces (for salad)
• Cranberries (for chutney)
• Onion (for stuffing, chutney)

Dairy: 

• Unsalted butter (for herb butter, potatoes, stuffing, pie crust)
• Heavy cream (for pie filling, whipped cream)
• Eggs (for pie, stuffing)
• Whole milk (for potatoes)
• Blue cheese (for salad)

Pantry items: 

• Olive oil (general purpose)
• Kosher salt (general purpose)
• Bread or croutons (for stuffing)
• Safflower oil (for frying shallots)
• Pomegranate molasses (for Brussels sprouts)
• White sugar (for cranberries)
• Pecans (for salad)
• Apple cider vinegar (for salad dressing)
• Dijon mustard (for salad dressing)
• Pecans (for salad)
• Flour (for pie dough)
• Canned pumpkin filling (for pie)
• Brown sugar (for pie)

Herbs and spices: 

• Sage (for stuffing)
• Herbes de Provence (for stuffing)
• Cloves (for pie)
• Nutmeg (for pie)
• Cinnamon (for pie)
• Fresh ginger (for pie and cranberries)
• Ground ginger (for pie)