Your ultimate Thanksgiving baking timeline
How to plan your Thanksgiving baking for a stress-free holiday.
Get ready, because it's time to compose your Thanksgiving timeline: the baking countdown that will take you from "I haven't even thought about it" to "Everything's on the table — let's eat!"
Thanksgiving baking can be overwhelming — there's only so much time and oven space! — but if you get started early and space out your work over the days and weeks leading up to the big day, everything will be much more organized and stress-free. For those who enjoy a day-by-day guide to take you from start to finish, this is for you.
Overwhelmed? We've compiled our Thanksgiving timeline into a simple single-sheet checklist so you can get yourself organized all month long, crossing off items as you tackle them. Find the printable PDF version here.
Three to four weeks before Thanksgiving
Decide who's doing what
Your very first task is to decide just how much baking is on your plate.
If you're hosting dinner, this is your decision to make. If you're traveling to friends' or relatives', it's mostly up to them — although feel free to suggest (firmly) that you'd love to make the pumpkin pie, or the dinner rolls, or whatever it is you truly love baking. They’ll likely appreciate your willingness to volunteer, especially if it’s something you feel extra-confident making.
Make a baking plan
This is the time to start deciding on specific recipes: which pecan pie? Whose favorite roll recipe? Gather your recipes, check your pantry, and make a shopping list.
If you've been assigned a dish to bring to the feast, you still have options. Apple pie? Sure; great opportunity to leaf through your apple pie recipes and select a favorite. Dinner rolls? Well, there's Parker House, and potato, and honey wheat, and sourdough — and plenty more.
Need recipe inspiration? Check out our 48 Thanksgiving dessert recipes for a sweet holiday and our 16 best Thanksgiving dinner roll recipes.
Prep pie dough
Pie dough can be prepared, patted into a disk, wrapped in plastic, and frozen for weeks ahead of time. If you've got the freezer space, you can even roll it out now and layer rounds of rolled-out dough with parchment before wrapping in plastic or foil and freezing. Thaw in the fridge overnight before using. (Looking for a reliable recipe? Try our Classic Double Pie Crust.)
Assemble and freeze fruit pies
If you want to go the extra mile, you can prep and freeze your whole fruit pies anytime between now and the week of Thanksgiving. You don't want to bake them — just prep pies up to the point where you'd pop them into the oven. The day before you want to bake, thaw pies overnight in the fridge. Then bake as usual the next day. See the details here: freeze and bake fruit pies.
Plan (and prep) desserts beyond pie
Pie isn't always everyone's favorite dessert. Kids, in particular, prefer smaller, sweeter treats — like cookies. And even if you are serving pie, you’ll likely want additional desserts for festivities before or after the big Thanksgiving dinner.
Make your favorite drop cookie dough now, and portion it into balls. Then freeze, bag, and stash back in the freezer. Pop a pan of frozen cookie dough balls into the oven during Thanksgiving dinner, and you’ll have oven-warm cookies on the dessert table in no time. Bonus: This Cookie Dough Freezer Tray makes things even easier.
Make bread for your homemade stuffing
Stuffing doesn't have to start with a plastic bag of seasoned croutons. Make it yourself — and start with homemade bread. Your goal is a firm, fairly close-grained white bread; this is just the recipe: English Muffin Toasting Bread. Not only is it perfect for stuffing, it's a super-easy no-knead loaf.
Do you prefer cornbread dressing? Start with homemade cornbread.
Either way, you want your bread to be somewhat stale before turning it into stuffing. Store it unwrapped overnight to dry out, then cut it into cubes (or tear into bite-sized pieces). Bag and freeze.
Think breakfast
Be prepared: Guests from far away may arrive the night before, then get up Thursday morning looking for something a bit more festive than a bowl of cornflakes.
Scone dough of all kinds freezes beautifully; our Cranberry Oat Scones are a lovely way to start Thanksgiving. And how about cinnamon buns? Easy, when you start with the dough from our Easy Drop Biscuits, a ridiculously simple mixture of equal parts (by weight) self-rising flour and heavy cream. The resulting dough can become anything from the aforementioned cinnamon buns to cheese and sausage biscuits to scones. See all the details here: freeze & bake tips.
One to two weeks before Thanksgiving
Prep and freeze dinner rolls
How do you time your dinner roll prep so rolls are hot out of the oven when dinner's served? We've discovered a super-simple solution: Make the dough up to 2 weeks ahead of time. Don’t let it rise, not even in the bowl. Immediately shape the dough into rolls; place them on a baking sheet, and freeze. Once frozen, bag them airtight, and return to the freezer.
When Thanksgiving morning rolls around, take the rolls out of the freezer, nestle them into a pan, and let them rise while the turkey roasts. Once the turkey comes out, pop the risen rolls into the oven and bake. Twenty-five minutes later — fresh, hot rolls! Find the details here: freeze and bake rolls.
OK, let's talk turkey: If you've purchased a frozen turkey, now may be the time to start thawing it in the fridge.
Thanksgiving week
Monday: Take a deep breath — assess where you are
Figure out the "periphery" of Thanksgiving dinner. Think about the number of people, extra leaves for the dining room table, and chairs. Wash your big serving dishes — you know, the ones that hang out on the top shelf collecting dust all year. Take care of all the non-food chores you can ahead of time, so that the last few days before Thanksgiving are strictly about the food.
Tuesday: Thaw pies/dough; make pumpkin filling; thaw bread for stuffing
If you've got fruit pies or pie dough in the freezer, place them in the fridge Tuesday night to thaw overnight.
Now is also the time to start thinking about your cream and custard pies, too. Pumpkin pie filling gets a certain edge, flavor-wise, if you make it a day ahead and let it "mellow" in the refrigerator overnight. Making chocolate cream pie? Its filling can easily be made ahead and chilled until its shell is baked. So make your pumpkin and chocolate cream fillings today, too, and stash them in the fridge.
If you prepped your stuffing bread ahead and stored bread cubes in the freezer, now is also the time to pull them out. Thaw bread cubes overnight at room temperature on a baking sheet.
Wednesday, Part One: Bake the pies
Whether you start from scratch or with a pie you'd pulled from the freezer the day before, Wednesday is pie-baking day. Here are a couple of key tips:
- Set the pie on a baking sheet lined with parchment. It'll make transportation easier, and the parchment will catch any messy filling spill-overs.
- For pumpkin pie, place the baking sheet with the pie shell, unfilled, on the oven shelf; then pour in the filling. This prevents those inevitable spills that happen when you've squeezed every last drop of filling into a crust that's not quite tall enough, then try to move the pan from counter to oven.
Baked pies can be stored at room temperature. Custard-based pies, like pumpkin or chocolate cream, should be stored in the refrigerator, or in an iced cooler if fridge space is tight. Learn more: How long does pie last?
And while the pies are baking, start gathering together your serving dishes and utensils for Thursday, with sticky labels about what goes in which dish. Scrambling for those things while you have a house full of company is a complete pain — it's best to get organized ahead of time!
Wednesday, Part Two: Prep the stuffing
Whether or not you froze bread cubes ahead of time, you can start prepping your stuffing right now. Use the bread cubes you thawed overnight, if applicable, or chop a stale loaf of bread into cubes early in the day and layer them on a baking sheet to dry out further. Then make your stuffing, put it into its baking dish, cover, and refrigerate, ready to bake the next day.
Hint: If you have a large enough toaster oven or countertop oven — like our beloved Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro — now's the time to use it. The turkey will be hogging most of your regular oven for much of the time leading up to dinner, so use your "alternate" oven for dishes like stuffing, or for reheating rolls, if necessary. The microwave is perfect for reheating vegetable dishes.
Thanksgiving morning: Showtime!
Thanksgiving morning
Bake the breakfast scones or cinnamon buns just before putting the turkey in the oven. Pull single-crust pies, like pumpkin pie, from the fridge to come to room temperature.
Take the rolls out of the freezer, place them in their pans, and let them thaw and rise for 4 to 6 hours, covered. When the turkey comes out of the oven, bake the stuffing and the rolls.
Just before eating
When the rolls come out of the oven, turn the oven off, and put the fruit pies in the cooling oven to warm up while you eat dinner.
Time to feast!
Want a handy checklist to follow along? We've compiled our Thanksgiving timeline into a PDF so you can get yourself organized all month long. Find it here.
Cover photo by Rick Holbrook; food styling by Kaitlin Wayne.
Editor's note: This post was updated in October 2024.
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