The Martha Stewart-Approved Time To Serve Thanksgiving Dinner

Thanksgiving dinner is an American tradition, but the specialness of the meal typically calls for an unusual serving time. Opinions vary greatly on the best time to serve this feast, but one voice worth listening to is the homemaking expert Martha Stewart. Having made a name for herself on entertaining guests, Stewart's expertise has pointed her to the same target time every year.

Stewart recently told the "TODAY Show" that she serves Thanksgiving dinner at 2:00 in the afternoon. With guests potentially skipping breakfast and lunch to leave more feasting room, she explained that, by mid-afternoon, "People are hungry and they're starting to circle the kitchen if you have a bunch of guests. You don't want to wait until it's nighttime."

Serving the meal this early carries several distinct advantages beyond just sating the hunger of skipping earlier meals. It leaves plenty of time for activities afterward — games, watching sports, and yes, even napping — without necessarily taking up the rest of the night. It creates the time for Thanksgiving to be more than just a big dinner.

Guests and chefs alike have a lot of opinions about Thanksgiving, including what time to serve dinner. When Martha Stewart hosted her disastrous first Thanksgiving, she was aiming for her family's traditional dinnertime of 1 p.m. But when the turkey overcooked overnight, she had to find and prepare a new one, dragging the dinner out to 7 p.m.

Avoid the potentially significant delay of a ruined turkey and stick close to the four expert tips for a restaurant-grade Thanksgiving turkey: Calibrate the oven for reliable cooking, season the bird with a flavorful brine, tuck and truss its extremities for even cooking, and use a meat thermometer to determine doneness.

If everything goes to plan, and dinner is served at 2 p.m., there's another potential benefit of the early meal. Stewart told "TODAY" that she likes to serve dessert sometime after the main meal, presumably for digestion to make room in people's stomachs. But since Martha Stewart never serves store-bought desserts, the lengthy after-dinner period can be the perfect time to finish making desserts or let them set a little bit more.