Thanksgiving has arrived and you probably already have the turkey sitting in your freezer waiting to be thawed, basted, baked or fried as you prepare to celebrate with your family and friends.
But what will you be serving alongside your holiday bird?
Utilizing Google Trends, BetColorado.com took a break from sports betting in Colorado and analyzed the most popular Thanksgiving side dishes of Colorado residents by looking at the search results of each side dish from Nov. 1, 2022 to Nov. 30, 2022.
The dishes analyzed were the most in total searches in the United States, including mashed potatoes, stuffing, macaroni and cheese, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, candied yams, brussels sprouts and cranberry sauce.
Favorite Thanksgiving Side Dishes in Colorado
Search is on for Great Stuffing
The most searched side dish is stuffing with nearly twice as much interest level over mashed potatoes. Green bean casserole was third, followed by mac and cheese and cranberry sauce. The popularity runs across all three major metro areas in Colorado. Grand Junction came in with 41% favoring stuffing, while Denver has 37% and Colorado Springs at 35%.
This would seem to be a CO betting apps style upset of sorts, since mashed potatoes comes out on top in most surveys of favorite side dishes for Thanksgiving. Idaho is nearby, too, so you can bet the trends would come out differently there.
The difficulty with stuffing comes from the many different recipes available. You’ve got sausage and herb, butter and herb, celery, butter and herb, apple and herb, and so on and so on. In fact, FoodNetwork.com recently shared a list of 85 different recipes for stuffing as we prepare for our Thanksgiving feasts. That’s a lot of combinations to try, so good luck narrowing that down.
Serving mashed potatoes is the easy choice. Boil, mash, add some salt, butter, some milk and possibly some sour cream and you’re done. Maybe the survey just found the people looking for a degree of difficulty or they have that favorite stuffing recipe that’s been handed down for generations.
Author
Douglas Pils has been a sports journalist for 30 years in Texas, Arkansas and New York having worked for the San Antonio Express-News, the Associated Press, The Dallas Morning News and Newsday. He most recently ran the Student Media Department at Texas A&M for eight years.