The Daily Meal's Fast Food Thanksgiving Slideshow

The Turkey: KFC’s Original Seasoning

For the main event of the Thanksgiving meal, we wanted to incorporate fast food while still honoring the true flavors of a Thanksgiving turkey. No one better understands how to season a bird than KFC, which is why we decided to use their Original Seasoning recipe for our turkey.

The Seasonings

After speaking with Todd Wilbur of Top Secret Recipes, we were able to get our hands on the secret combination of spices that we would use to season our bird. 

Click here to see Todd Wilbur's Version of KFC Original Seasoning Recipe

The Finished Bird

That turkey serving as the centerpiece to the Thanksgiving meal tastes just as juicy and flavorful as a bucket of KFC fried chicken, making it the ultimate fast-food turkey. 

Click here to see Todd's Wilbur's Version of KFC's Original Seasoning Recipe

Stuffing: White Castle Sliders

Remember when our "craver craze" pushed us to create a recipe for White Castle sliders all on our own? That craving is still going strong, which is why we wanted to use White Castle's sliders to make our stuffing this Thanksgiving.

Click here to see How to Make Your Own White Castle Slider at Home

Stuffing Recipe

It wasn't a novel thought, though, and has already been done by White Castle themselves, so we were lucky to have our friends share the recipe so that we could include this dish in our Thanksgiving meal.

Click here to see the White Castle Stuffing Recipe

Mashed Potatoes: McDonald’s Fries

Nothing says fast food like McDonald's fries. They're not only delicious, but they're the epitome of why we love fast food; they're handheld, hard to replicate, and they have a flavor unlike any other fry we've tasted before. 

Incorporating McDonald’s Into the Potatoes

For the recipe, we chopped up the fries into bite-sized pieces and gave them a toast so we could incorporate them into our mashed potatoes.

McDonald’s Mashed Potatoes

After folding them into our favorite mashed potato recipe, we were convinced that McDonald's does have a place at our Thanksgiving table. The creamy mashed potatoes get the perfect crunchy and salty bite from the fry, and the whole dish satiates our fast-food cravings while still retaining a traditional feeling. 

Click here to see the McDonald's Mashed Potatoes Recipe

Green Beans: Burger King Onion Rings

Green beans always have a place on our Thanksgiving menu, so we developed a way of sprucing them up using one of our favorite fast-food items: Burger King's onion

Green Beans: McDonald’s Sweet and Sour Sauce

Because replicating a traditional green bean and onion casserole seemed boring, we gave our recipe a twist with our favorite fast food condiment McDonald's Sweet and Sour Sauce. 

The Rings

We cut our rings in half and gave them a toast in the oven to make sure they were extra crispy. 

The Sauce

And we tossed our cooked green beans in the sauce so that it was evenly distributed.

Sweet and Sour Green Beans with Burger King Onion Rings

The end result proves that sweet and sour sauce goes with more than just fries and McNuggets, and Burger King's savory rings are the perfect balance to the sweetness in the sauce.

Click here to see the Sweet and Sour String Beans with Burger King Onion Rings Recipe

Gravy: KFC Gravy

When we thought of fast food and gravy, images of mashed potatoes soaked in KFC gravy were the only thing that came to mind. To give us a bit of a challenge, we decided to include this gravy in our Thanksgiving meal by trying to replicate the recipe. 

Our Own Twists

While there are several copycat recipes, there was an underlying and easy theme throughout them all, and so we spiced ours up a bit. Our first addition was fresh garlic and shallots, to give it a depth of flavor unlike any dried seasoning would.

Bouillon Cubes

After sautéing the shallots and garlic, we made a quick roux and added water with chicken and beef bouillon cubes, which were prominent ingredients in many of the copycat recipes. While we tried to remain as organic as possible, we thought that we'd hurt the recipe if we skipped this step.

Nape

Everyone can agree that the best part of KFC gravy is its thick, silky texture, so we made sure to cook our stock with the roux until it was nape, or until it coated the back of a spoon. 

The Daily Meal’s KFC Gravy

Our finished result was as close to the original as possible, and we all agreed it would taste great with all of Thanksgiving's main dishes.

Click here to see The Daily Meal's KFC Gravy Recipe

Sweet Potato Casserole: Popeyes Pecan Pie

Along with fried chicken, Popeyes is commended for serving some awesome desserts, like their Edward's Georgian Pecan Pie. Because we love this sweet treat so much, we found a place for it in our sweet potato casserole.

Dissecting the Pie

To incorporate it in its entirety, we broke down the pie and separated the crust, filling, and nuts from each other. 

The Sweet Potato Filling

Next, we mixed the pie's filling into our mashed sweet potatoes to add an extra hint of sweetness.

The Crumble

We then processed the crust and nuts together to make a crumble to top our casserole.

Popeyes Sweet Potato Casserole

With the addition of marshmallows to the crumble, our casserole was complete. Few would even know that there was fast food included, but Popeyes' signature dessert adds a unique flavor to the casserole unlike any we've tried before.

Click here to see the Popeye's Sweet Potato Casserole Recipe

Dessert: McDonald’s Apple Pie

For dessert, we immediately thought of McDonald's apple pie, as it is one of our favorite fast-food desserts, and no Thanksgiving dinner is complete without apple pie.

Dessert: Taco Bell’s Cinnamon Twists

But we didn't stop there. To add some variety to our dessert, we chose to incorporate Taco Bell's Cinnamon Twists in to the recipe as well.

The Filling

For the recipe, we decided to do a traditional apple crumble, and we tossed the McDonald's pies with apples, lemon juice, and sugar and added them to the ramekins. 

The Taco Bell Topping

For our topping, we processed the cinnamon twists and mixed them with oats.

McDonald’s Apple Pie and Taco Bell Cinnamon Crumble

The crumbles had it all: fresh apple, crunchy oat topping, and the addition of a savory piecrust and crunchy cinnamon from McDonald's and Taco Bell. This crumble proved that last is certainly not least, and completed our Thanksgiving menu with a scoop of Wendy's vanilla frosty.

Click here to see the McDonald's Apple Pie and Taco Bell Cinnamon Crumble Recipe