Ridiculous holiday side dishes (that are secretly delicious)

In its classic incarnation, this dessert-for-dinner side dish involves an alliterative mix of sweet potatoes, pecans, pineapples, and pumpkin pie spices, all baked up under a cloud of nicely browned mini marshmallows. It’s a sugar coma in a casserole dish, truly, but it’s actually the perfect warm-and-spicy foil to the bitterness of Brussels sprouts and the tart tang of cranberry sauce.

These mini cabbages stink up the kitchen, and invariably show up on the table soggy and grey–except when they’re roasted (or chopped and sauteed) with bacon and onions (throw in some grated apple for some extra flavour) and become a bowlful of deliciousness. If you do like steamed Brussels sprouts, just do everyone a favour and don’t overcook them.

These creamed side dishes–no matter what vegetable you’re submerging–don’t tend to be very attractive. Veggies in white sauce just don’t scream “magazine photoshoot.” But oh, the taste more than makes up for the fact that creamed anything isn’t especially pretty. And, of course, you don’t just dump a cup of cream on your veggies (although you could do that if you’re really, really hungry): you make a simple white sauce with butter, flour, garlic, and milk, thicken it up, and enjoy. Nom.

Another entry in the “dessert for dinner” category, jellied salads are almost always more than the sum of their parts. Whether you’re combining orange jello, carrots, and walnuts or green jello, cottage cheese and/or Miracle Whip, pineapple, and maraschino cherries (festive!), these salads sound gross but always taste yummy. If you think about it, a light, fruity “salad” (note: not really a salad) is a nice antidote to heavy turkey and stuffing, acting as a palate cleanser between richer dishes. See–jellied salads are way more sophisticated than you thought.

We had never heard these referred to as Funeral Potatoes before, but we recognized the recipe: hash brown potatoes (some Canadian variations call for Tater Tots), cheese, sour cream, and a delicious topping of crushed potato chips, crispy onions, or cornflakes. Why have just plain old potatoes when you can combine so many delicious things into one casserole dish?

Someone, somewhere, looked at fresh, snappy green beans one day and thought, “You know what would go great with these? Cream of mushroom soup. Oh, and fried onions.” For whatever reason, green bean casserole is a staple of many holiday tables. Not saying it isn’t yummy–especially if you get the thickness of the mushroom sauce just right–but you have to admit, it’s an odd combo. Those fried onions are pretty addictive, though.

OK, this is kind of a dessert side dish, but it is still an oddity–especially if you consider that the original recipes for mincemeat actually had meat in them. Whether or not the heavy use of spices, citrus peel, and distilled spirits (usually brandy) were an effort to preserve the meat or disguise meat that had gone off a bit is probably a moot point now, since modern mincemeat recipes may include suet but don’t tend to use actual meat. The three main spices–cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg–were once thought to represent the Three Wise Men.