What do vegetarians eat for Thanksgiving?

My sister had nut loaf, sauteed mushrooms, and ratatouille last Thanksgiving when she was at her own house. When she comes to the family Thanksgiving dinner she eats all of the different types of vegetables plus potatoes and pumpkin pie.

tofurkey (for the hardcore vegans/vegetarians)
If not, they have an Ethiopian dinner :nothing
Yes I’m aware there’s Ethiopian cuisine

I’m the only veg in my immediate family. I just don’t eat the turkey. There’s so much food at Thanksgiving dinner anyway.

I eat fish, and my silly mom always wants to make me fish. As if I’ll starve without a protein at one meal, and as if I want to give her more work when she’s making Thanksgiving dinner!

I don’t end up eating the turkey, but that’s because our turkey is dry and bland, not because I’m veggie.

So instead, I eat the gravy (not veggie, but it is very easy to make delicious veggie gravy), mashed potatoes, a salad, rolls, pumpkin custard, etc.

Also, sometimes beans (barbecued beans) get made. Om nom nom…and veggie. :D

Clementines are often in season by then, and I usually eat 1 or 2 or 9 or 10.

We eat vegetarian lasagna, baked sweet potatoes, various veggies and salads, hummus, salsa, cheese, crackers and for the skinnies, rich desserts.

@gailcalled, lurve for veggie lasagna! (and the rest—really, that sounds yummy!)

I am a carnivore and a lover of Thanksgiving (I think a lot of American Jews really love Thanksgiving) and two of my kids are serious vegetarians, so I just try to make sure that they have a lot of tasty, traditional-ish options: Brussel Sprouts, one casserole of dressing without the sausage I usually add, quinoa as a starchy side dish, sweet potato pie (oh, yum) biscuits and rolls, green beans, creamed spinach, I guess really anything they want.

I usually eat the sides that are available. Sometimes other family members will make me a vegetarian lasagna or vegetarian chic patties. Like @Likeradar says there are plenty of other foods that more than make a meal. Deviled eggs, mashed taters, green beans, stuffing (without the chicken broth), rolls, pies galore so on and so forth.

I eat everything else there is but the Turkey or Chicken. There’s always more options available. And my mom makes me something that involves cheese. So I eat that. And what @Likeradar said

My nephew has been a vegetarian since he was a baby (I kid you not). He didn’t like the texture of baby food with meat in it and hasn’t eaten meat since. No desire. He’s now almost 17.

For Thanksgiving, a rather huge plate of mashed potatoes with salt and butter, vegetable medley (broccoli, cauli, and melted cheese), Waldorf Salad (apples, mini mashmellows, dates, mandarin orange slices (from a can), grapes (halved) and walnuts with whipping cream— mixed together), usually at least two rolls and a rather large slice of pumpkin pie for dessert. He’s a big boy, too (6’). Or, he’ll have veggie lasagna (my Mom used to make a separate batch just for him). Sounds delicious, huh? :)

I eat everything but the meat. Also as my family is mostly Italian we’ve always had a pasta dish (lasagna, tortellini soup, stuffed shells, etc) so I’d have that too.

I eat everything but the turkey. It’s really not a big deal. Vegetarians eat all the same things that non-vegetarians eat just without the meat.

Vegetarian friends of mine serve tofurkey.

I think my sister would not try to eat anything that even resembled a typical thanksgiving meal, she is vegan. My dad cheats on that day and actually eats turkey. My aunt would have everything but the turkey.

@gailcalled- Yum! What would you like me to bring and what time should I be there?

It depends on the vegetarian guests we have. My brother-in-law loves mushrooms and will eat them any day as a meat sub. Roast a few big ones and he’s happy. My veggie friends in IL tended to hate mushrooms. So, for them, we had to do lasagna or another veggie main.

We’ve never done the tofurkey route, but we got tofu-loaf of a sort on a lark last year. It ended up being a huge dare to eat (and we totally had back up tasty food for the veggies).

@peedub: This past T’day, we had a palace coup, instigated by one niece and one nephew who whined about missing Turkey, grease, flour and butter, and the rest of the usual meal. My sister (their mother) will probably cave in this year. I’ll keep you posted.

My sister did tofurkey one year, but never again. However, she does eat Tofu Pups shudder. Even with what real hot dogs are made of well, I only eat kosher hot dogs so they aren’t as bad Tofu Pups are anathema.

@Darwin: I’m with you and never eat anything that is disguised to look like something else.

Vegetables.

pizza!

I’m assuming whatever people that don’t celebrate thanksgiving, like myself, eat – whatever’s not Turkey

im vegitarian, and i eat almost anything veggie. usually tofurkey

My wife is veggie, and a for a few years we did the tofurkey thing. I kind of like it sliced and covered with gravy. Then we found Quorn. It tastes pretty good, I think better than tofurkey, but I’ve also heard that the fungus used to create it can cause allergic reactions for some. We also make our own seitan. Many years ago worked as a cook in a whole foods type restaurant, and we used seitan to make veggie kabobs for skewers.

We have Thanksgiving for both sides of the family at my house every year. I serve all the regular Thanksgiving foods with a few extra vegan choices, and everybody is happy. I don’t expect others to go without traditional foods just b/c I won’t eat some of them.

I’m not a vegetarian, but everything here sounds YUMMY!!!

Except tofurkey. No thank you.

My whole immediate family is vegetarian (we do eat fish), and we always had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with all the normal stuff, but we replaced the turkey with fish (usually salmon – it goes well with all the other Thanksgiving goodies). When we go to a relative’s house, we just eat everything but the turkey – there’s always plenty of food!

On a side note, if you take a salmon fillet, cover it with cranberry sauce, sprinkle some chopped nuts on top, and bake it, it’s SO tasty – way better than turkey, in my opinion!

We sold a lot of Tufurkies to the vegetarians who shopped where I worked. I tried some once – it’s different, but good.

One other alternative is stuffing a squash (like a pie pumpkin, different from the Jack O’Lantern kind) as if it were a turkey, baking that, and setting out all the usual vegetarian sides.

My brother is a vegetarian. Based on my observation, he eats a lot of side dishes, and puts up with a lot more of “But it’s Thanksgiving! Here, you need to have some turkey!” than I would.

Last year I hosted it, and I made sure that the only dishes with meat in them were the turkey itself and the gravy. He was fine with that.

@cwilbur I think it is just awful when people try to coerce others into eating or drinking someting they don’t want to.

@cwilbur Some said that to me a few years ago at Thanksgiving. My response: “I doubt the turkey is very thankful.” It shut him up fast. I’m only a pushy veg when I encounter a pushy non-veg.

@Likeradar I meant some one said that to me.

@Likeradar When people try to get me to eat turkey, I sing them the Albuquerque Turkey song (to the tune of Darling Clementine):

Albuquerque is a turkey
And he’s feathered and he’s fine
And he wobbles and he gobbles
and he’s absolutely mine.

He’s the best pet you can get yet
Better than a dog or cat.
He’s my Albuquerque turkey
And I’m awfully proud of that.

He once told me, very frankly
he preferred to be my pet,
not the main course at my dinner,
and I told him not to fret.

And my Albuquerque turkey
is so happy in his bed,
‘Cause for our Thanksgiving dinner…
We had egg foo young instead.

That usually scares them off pretty fast…

@laureth I love a stuffed spaghetti squash!

@Yetanotheruser ” Or the reverse; spaghetti squash with marinara sauce.

@gailcalled Or spaghetti sauce, with something resembling pumpkin pie spices! Squash type veggies are so versatile!

I am so hungry right now!

@Yetanotheruser: Isn’t marinara sauce another form of sauce for spaghetti?

Marinara sauce is a sauce for spaghetti. Or linguine, or fettucine.

There are dozens of pasta sauces.