How to Make a Dollar Tree Thanksgiving Dinner for Just $10

Using a 9x13 pan, I created sections for each dish so I could save time and cook everything at once. I picked up 8 ingredients at Dollar Tree for $10.

Ingredients:

• a pack of mini marshmallows
• ham trimmings
• a can of cream of mushroom soup
• a can of green beans
• mashed potatoes
• turkey stuffing
• a can of corn
• a can of sweet potatoes

I had never seen the ham trimmings before so I was curious to see how they turned out. I also used some ingredients I had at home, like margarine, salt, and pepper. I'm also using cinnamon, onion powder, Worcestershire sauce, and a little bit of imitation vanilla.

1. Prepare the pan

Start preparing your pan by lining it with tinfoil. Use twice as much tinfoil as the size of the pan so you can fold it up into sections. This way you can cook everything at once and each dish stays separate in a little pocket within the pan. 

Wrap the foil around one side of the pan, and press it in, making sure it's flush against all the edges. Once you get about a third of the way into the pan, fold a ridge to section things off. Make a second ridge a bit further into the pan so you have three sections.

For the next set of sections take two smaller pieces of aluminum foil and pinch it in the middle so you have another section. You should end up with six sections in all.

2. Green bean casserole

Start making your food by draining the green beans and dumping them into a bowl. Add in the cream of mushroom soup, about a teaspoon of Worcester sauce, and a healthy pinch of salt and pepper.

Give it a good stir and dump it into your first section. I wanted to have a little bit of leftover, so I’m not putting everything in. I’m just filling each section and putting the remaining servings in containers.

I’m not using the traditional onion toppings on the green bean casserole because that would have been an extra $1.25 and I wanted to keep this meal under $10. Instead, I’m adding the stuffing mix as a crunchy topping.

Take about an 8th of a cup of the stuffing mix, stick it in a bag and smash it up. I used a meat mallet. Then just sprinkle that crushed-up stuffing mix on top of the green beans. I also added some onion powder for that oniony flavor we would have gotten from fried onions.

3. Stuffing

For the stuffing mix, I followed the directions on the box which called for a 1/4 cup of margarine and 1½ cups of water. Just bring that up to a boil and dump the stuffing mixture in. Stir it around and fluff it up. Then you can put it into one of your sections.

4. Corn

To make the corn I strained the can and added a tablespoon of melted butter with some salt and pepper. We're keeping it simple for a lot of these dishes because I wanted to make something that I could whip up quickly. This whole meal ended up taking about 30 minutes to prepare, plus an additional 25 to 30 minutes in the oven.

5. Mashed potatoes

After you dump that corn in you can start working on your mashed potatoes. The cream of mushroom soup would work well in the mashed potatoes as a milk substitute if you don’t have milk. I added a little extra water in place of the milk, which worked fine. Then I added some salt, pepper, and butter.

6. Sweet potatoes

Next up, we're doing our sweet potatoes. I’d recommend straining the juice and putting it to the side to pour over your ham. Add a dash of cinnamon and 1 and 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla flavoring. Then add in your marshmallows.

I added about 1/8 of a cup of marshmallows into the mixture. Then I sprinkled a few more marshmallows and a dash of cinnamon on top.

I planned the placement of the sections so that each dish would go well with whatever dish was next to them, just in case they bled over to each other. In the end, I found the sections held up nicely, and I didn't have any leaking flavors from one to another.

7. Ham

The ham was very hard, so I was interested to see if it would soften up, but even once it was cooked it was still kind of tough. It's what you might expect from a Dollar Tree standard of ham, but it was still good with the rest of the dishes.

Pour the sweet potato juice over it to cancel out some of the saltiness. Then sprinkle some cinnamon on top. 

Once you’ve filled all your sections, put the pan in the oven at 350 degrees for about 25 – 30 minutes. I covered everything to make sure that nothing dried out.

Dollar Tree Thanksgiving Meal for $10

That was incredibly easy and there’s more than enough for me and my husband, plus leftovers! Not bad at all for only $10 at the Dollar Tree.

I hope this gives you a little bit of Thanksgiving inspiration. Tell me in the comments how yours turns out.