Make this cute and fancy Turkey Thanksgiving Veggie Tray as an appetizer for the holiday. The platter is loaded with tons of fresh vegetables, requires very little effort and is easy to make. Your guests will GOBBLE it up!

 

If you are planning to entertain this Thanksgiving or Friendsgiving you probably need a few appetizer ideas. This Thanksgiving Veggie Tray would be GREAT! It’s super easy to put together and it doubles as a festive centerpiece.
If you are looking for holiday appetizer ideas, consider making a Thanksgiving Charcuterie Board or Baked Cranberry Cream Cheese Dip.

You can make your Thanksgiving Vegetable Tray into any size you will need. If you are feeding a larger crowd, I say go BIG. A bit smaller, go ahead and make it the size of a regular dinner plate. This 14 inch board I made can serve about 10-12.

Making an impressive Thanksgiving appetizer tray is so super easy when you use fresh vegetables combined with your favorite dip. Sometimes I use homemade Dip for our veggie trays. A homemade Green Onion Dip would pair well with the veggies. Or my Fried Pickle and Ranch Dip would be great too! Feel free to save time and purchase a store-bought pre-made Dip.
You can keep your Thanksgiving Turkey Veggie Tray extremely easy by purchasing store-bought pre-peeled, chopped and sliced vegetables. They are available at most groceries and really help save time. They do cost a bit more in some cases, not in others. It really depends on the vegetable.

For your Thanksgiving appetizer platter, you can choose whichever veggies you like best. Just be sure to have a few different colors and a few longer shaped vegetables for your Turkey Feathers. I used mini carrots, celery sticks, radishes, snow peas, cucumbers, tomatoes, broccoli and peppers. You will not be able to skip the pepper as we use one of those to make this a Turkey Appetizer Platter and it is needed for the turkey face.

Thanksgiving Vegetable Tray Ingredients

Your ingredient list may be a bit different than mine. But if you are needing a bit of guidance and want to make your Veggie Tray just like mine, here is what you will need:

• Dip – We recommend going with whatever your favorite vegetable dip is here. For some homemade dip recommendations, we’d go with our Dill Pickle Dip recipe or some Green Onion Dip. You can also just go with storebought dip or chip dip, like this dill dip we used today.
• Snow Peas – Or snap peas, whichever you prefer.
• Radishes – Slice these into small radish medallions.
• Carrots – Grab some small baby carrots with greens and peel them beforehand (i found a store-bought version all peeled at my Kroger).
• Celery – Trim, cut these in half lengthwise, and then chop them down to the same length as your carrots.
• Bell Peppers – You want three colors here: yellow, green, and red bell peppers. Remove the seeds and cut into strips. Get an extra red bell pepper and leave it be for now.
• Broccoli Florets
• Cherry Tomatoes
• Cucumber – Go with an English cucumber or seedless cucumber and slice it into medallions like the radishes.
• Candy Eyes – Get some small candy eyes. The smallest you can manage.
• Peanut Butter

You’ll also need something fairly big to fit all of this onto. We used a 14 inch platter for the display you see in our pictures here.

See recipe card for quantities.

How to make a Vegetable Tray for Thanksgiving

With all these ingredients, you could just throw it all together on a platter or serving tray and have a pretty tasty vegetable platter. Still, if you’re looking for Thanksgiving Veggie Tray ideas, you will like how this “vegetable turkey” tray we made came out. To make one just like ours, here’s what you need to do- step-by-step with pictures:

• If you haven’t already, transfer dip into a serving bowl. Set near the edge of the platter, leaving space to set snow peas out.

• Next to the snap peas along the edge of the platter, set some of your thin raddish slices.

• Now we’ll start making our vegetable turkey feathers. Start by laying a base of alternating carrots and celery sticks, hanging ends out over the edge of the platter.

• Next, start laying your sliced bell peppers over your carrot and celery layer. Keep bell pepper slices lined up roughly with the edge of the platter and go in a green-yellow-red order.

• To fill in the empty space between the “feathers” and the dip bowl, add broccoli florets.

• Between the turkey feathers and broccoli, pile up some cherry tomatoes.

• Finally, throw your sliced cucumber above the cherry tomatoes, on top of the vegetable feather layer.

• To make the vegetable turkey face, take extra bell pepper and slice bottom off, about 1/4-1/2 inch thick.

• To make the turkey beak, cut off a tiny piece of carrot and carefully carve a notch into it.

• Use peanut butter to stick candy eyes into bell pepper slice and attach beak. Carefully balance vegetable turkey face over the edge of the dip bowl. Transfer vegetable platter gently to wherever you want to serve it and enjoy!

Storage / Freezing

Storage: When it comes to storing your leftover vegetable tray, the fridge is going to be your best friend. You can keep the entire vegetable tray together, cover the vegetable dip with plastic wrap, and expect it to last 2-3 days. For best results, store vegetables separately in airtight containers or Ziploc bags- results vary by vegetable but expect 3-7 days stored this way.

Freezing: A frozen vegetable tray is a bit inconvenient but not impossible. Vegetables freeze best if you blanch them in boiling water for a couple minutes before shocking in an ice bath and freezing separately. Frozen vegetables keep for 8-12 months but, really, it’s just more convenient to avoid freezing vegetable trays and just enjoy your veggies.

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