2025 Thanksgiving Cooking Hotline! Ask Us Anything!

Got Thanksgiving cooking questions? Well, we’re here to help! We want you to have a delicious and stress-free Thanksgiving, whether you're preparing an epic feast or bringing a side to a Friendsgiving potluck. Ask about anything and everything related to Thanksgiving, and we'll answer as quickly as possible.

Our chef team will be manning the Thanksgiving Hotline and answering questions live from 9am to 5pm PT on Monday, November 24, 2025. And we'll continue answering questions through the end of Tuesday, November 25, 2025.

Please up-vote any questions you find most useful; this will help us surface the most relevant information for everyone. Let's cook smarter this holiday season!

Looking for inspiration? Check out our Thanksgiving Hub.

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sho.spaeth

We'll be adding questions (and answers!) that we're receiving on other platforms, too, so we have a central repository of FAQs.

One of our Studio Pass members wrote in with this question about our Basque Cheesecake:

"I’ve made this cheesecake numerous times and was wondering if I wanted to add pumpkin to it for Thanksgiving what I would have to take out of the recipe. It probably wouldn’t cook the same with the added pumpkin puree."

Great news! We just updated the recipe with two flavor variations—pumpkin and chocolate!

We’ve added instructions and ingredient quantities in the recipe page for these variations, but we’ll include the substitutions here for the pumpkin Basque cheesecake, since it’s oh-so-very-timely (and it’s dead simple).

Here’s how to do it:

In Step 2 of the recipe, add 30 g Sweet Spice (or pumpkin spice mix) to the dry ingredients, and substitute the 700 g of heavy cream with 700 g canned pumpkin purée when blending the batter.

Proceed with the recipe as written (no changes to the baking process needed) and you’ve got yourself a Thanksgiving-coded Basque cheesecake!

sho.spaeth

A couple questions about our Perfect Pumpkin Pie:

You’re perfect pumpkin pie recipe uses a 15 ounce can of pumpkin purée. I wanted to scale the recipe to using the typical 28 ounce can of pumpkin. When scaled times two it did not upgrade the amount of eggs. Is that correct or should the eggs have been basically doubled? Additionally, I would rather sous vide the custard. Is it still 185° internal temperature and how long should it be sous vide?

From chef Nick:

Yes the eggs should be doubled, 4 large eggs would be all you need.

If you're planning to sous vide the custard then pipe it into the blind baked shell that will not work. When custards are cooked they create a gelled network. That network of cooked proteins when disturbed by blending or moving such as piping will break them up, resulting in a thinner texture. If you want to sous vide a pumpkin pie-like thing, here is a recipe for Pumpkin Pie in a Jar.

sho.spaeth

I got a question of my own!

So I'm doing an unconventional T-Day meal: Chicken wings, and then all the other Thanksgiving stuff (jacket potatoes, StoveTop stuffing, gravy, a brussels salad, cranberry out of a can).

However, I also picked up some foie gras slices and a couple live abalone, and I have literally no plans for them. Do you chefs have any great ideas for the the foie and abalone, either in combination or separately? Good sous vide time and temp for abalone?

nicholas.gavin

Oh man the abalone is a curve ball for me. Maybe @tim.d.chin has some good ideas for you.

I would thinly slice the abalone and wok fry with the foie. To avoid overcooking the foie I would slice it into small cubes about 1/2-inch and freeze.

Another thing you could do with the foie if you get it going now is pack it in a salt and sugar cure with citrus zest for 48 hrs. Rinse away the cure and freeze the sliced foie solid the night before. Microplane frozen foie over your Thanksgiving plate! This is a great way to stretch the flavor a long ways at a gathering with a bit of flare.

tim.d.chin

@sho.spaeth I'm team soy-braised abalone (which I know you are not). But if you wanted to take a new school approach, you could play with cooking abalone sous vide (~140-160ish for 4+ hours, depending on the type) directly in a Cantonese-inspired braising liquid (think oyster sauce, light soy sauce, sugar, totole, white pepper, maybe some Jinhua ham/rehydrated dry shiitakes).

You'd likely get a brownish stain, but the interior cross-section would still be fresh looking.

Save the cooking liquid and make a sauce: Bloom garlic+tiny bit of ginger, deglaze with tiniest splash of Shaoxing wine, add cooking liquid, thicken slightly with slurry and season with toasted sesame oil.

Slice the abalone thin, serve with the sauce. Grate @nicholas.gavin's frozen foie on top of abalone. Serve with blanched iceberg/romaine lettuce for the classic vibes. 🥢

sho.spaeth

From our Rich as F*¢k Cornbread:

What would the baking procedure be for a 12 inch skillet and muffin tins?

Chef Nick's answer:

12-inch skillet:

Follow the baking temps in our "TIP: How to bake cornbread in a 10-inch skillet". Due to the fact that the cornbread will be wider and not as tall as the 10-inch skillet version the bake time might be around 25-30 minutes. Begin temping your bread at 20 minutes.

Muffin tins:

We did some tests on this. During tests used 4-ounce muffin tins, sprayed with nonstick cooking spray. Filled each mold with 110 g of batter and baked at 325 °F with convection. Total bake time was around 22 min. Don't forget to rotate 1 or 2 times during the bake!

sho.spaeth

From our Sous Vide Pork Shoulder “Ham”:

Is there another option to reheat the roast after the SV step? I only have one Joule and am planning to also SV my turkey so I had wanted to make the ham ahead of time and the turkey the day before Thanksgiving.

Chef Nick's answer:

I like your style, going for both!

You can absolutely reheat the roast. After its done cooking, drain juices from the bag into a small pot or heat proof container. Save those juices for making the graze. I find it easier to drain the juices before chilling to save time during the reheat and you don't have to drain the juices later during game time.

Submerge the bag with the roast in ice water to rapidly chill it for about 30 min then transfer to the fridge to full chill. Depending the on the size of the roast the reheat time might vary. What I would do is when you're cooking your turkey breasts sous vide at 131 °F I would add the roast back to the bath for the last 6 hrs of the cook to fully reheat.

sho.spaeth

From our Holiday Panettone:

Most panettone recipes call for an internal temperature north of 91 centigrade. How come you settled on 79?

Chef Tim weighed in:

Full transparency: I wasn't around for development on this recipe (nor have I ever made this recipe!). But I have made other panettone recipes, and I agree with you, most other recipes call for a higher internal temperature. For enriched breads, we generally aim for anywhere between 180 F (82 C) to 195 F (~91 C). The exact temperature depends on the recipe (i.e. the degree of enrichment, hydration, form factor, etc.)

Based on my close reading, it sounds like we're banking on carryover cooking during the long cooling process. I'd wager that during that time, the internal temperature will climb at least 10 degrees F (~5.5 C), which would put us well within the recommended range of internal temperature (I'd also double down and bet that the internal temperature would climb even higher than this). Starch gelatinization occurs in 79C+ range, which is the primary objective for any bread (along with recrystallization/retrogradation during cooling).

All this to say: We'd likely aim for a lower internal temperature here to maximize the moist, tender, custardy qualities of the panettone. There's far less chance of the bread having a "leaner" or drier texture by pulling it at a lower temperature. It is admittedly a higher risk strategy. But you know what they say: High risk, high reward.

sho.spaeth

I'm getting two abalone, so maybe I'll bag 'em up separately and do Cantonese-style with one and just do plain jane abs for the other, and then just warm it briefly in butter before slicing.

I think—yeah, I'll try the grated frozen foie over the abalone. We won't have a wok, and in any case I feel like I'd nuke the foie even if it was frozen.

Thanks, fellas!

nicholas.gavin

I'm feeling compelled to share one of my favorite desserts on ChefSteps that I'm making this holiday season, Sticky Toffee Pudding. If you haven't had a toffee pudding before I highly recommend trying it out.

sho.spaeth

Got a few more from Instagram. Here's a question about making hollandaise for 50(!) people:

I’m making hollandaise for 50 people. I was planning on bulk making ChefSteps Sous Vide Hollandaise, blending, and then holding in the control freak for service. Is there a better approach? How long can I hold it? And is there anything I should add for stability like soy lecithin?

Here's chef Nick:

Without knowing how fast the 50 people need to be served, here is the safest approach: Once your bulk batch of sous vide hollandaise is cooked hold it warm in the sous vide bath at 140 °F. Remove 1/4 of the hollandaise, blend and keep warm on the control freak using probe control. This way your have 3/4 of you hollandaise warm and ready incase it over reduces, breaks, or whatever.

sho.spaeth

A question about butterballs and traveling with turkey:

Two questions. First, can I use a pre brined butterball and skip the cure for sous vide turkey breast and leg? Will it be too salty? Second, is there a time temp combo that can be fully done in one 16 hour stint? I need to travel with the pre-cooked bird and won’t be able to do the full 24 hours. Thank you!

Here's chef Nick:

Question 1: You can 100% use a pre brined butterball bird and skip the cure.

Question 2: Cook legs (dark meat) at 149 °F for 8 hrs. Leave the legs in and add breasts (white meat) to the bath, drop the temperature to 136°F. Continue to cook for 8 more hrs.

sho.spaeth

Here's one about our Showstopper Turkey Elixir:

The showstopper turkey recipe. What can be substitute for the cranberry bitter and the browning sauce? These are hard (impossible) to find in stores in Norway.

Chef Nick:

Substitute Angostura bitters for the cranberry bitters. For the browning sauce use Maggi Seasoning.

gantros

Hello, had a question regarding patê brisée pie crust and whether it can be used after being frozen for a year. Basically, made apple pie for Thanksgiving last year and accidentally made double the pie crust. I wrapped both in plastic and placed those in a ziplock freezer bag, and it’s been in the bottom of my freezer drawer ever since. I pulled it out yesterday to thaw, and while I expect some degradation, is it safe?

gantros

Last Thanksgiving I accidentally made a quadruple batch of the pie dough. I wrapped the two discs and placed both in a freezer bag, which has been in the bottom of the freezer drawer ever since. Now I’m being called on to make my apple pie again and was wondering if the old dough is safe?

-CJ

tim.d.chin

Ooh, this is a tough one! Anecdotally, I have done this, though I don't necessarily recommend it from a quality perspective.

If you're worried about getting sick: In practical terms, freezing slows undesirable pathogen growth (salmonella, e. coli, staph aureus for example) dramatically and delays the oxidation/graying of the dough (to a lesser extent). Over a year of freezing time, pathogenic growth is effectively zero: There's little chance that these microbes will have grown to any appreciable extent. (But! If your freezer doesn't reliably maintain freezing temperatures, then the chances are nonzero). Finally, heat (baking) will kill salmonella and e. coli, but the toxins (not the bacteria themselves) from staph aureus are known to be heat-resistant.

So you need to take a calculated risk. From a cooking perspective, ask yourself:

Are there signs of freezer burn on the dough? This would primarily affect dough quality (e.g. dry spots, discoloration) If so, I'd make a fresh batch
Is your freezer reliably cold enough? Does it cycle on/off for long periods of time (letting the temp creep over 5F, for instance), or was there ever an extended power outage (12+ hrs) in the last year? If so, I wouldn't risk it

If the dough passes those tests, then proceed with this:

Thaw one portion of pie dough
Look out for graying (oxidation), or funky/sour smells
Roll and test bake a portion (maybe a sheet, or a mini pie shell)
Evaluate it for look, smell, and ultimately flavor (does it taste like "fridge" or at all stale?)

Hope this helps!