50 Thanksgiving Sides on One Map, Including Why Cornbread Dressing Wins Half the South

People
10/29/2026
50 Thanksgiving Sides on One Map, Including Why Cornbread Dressing Wins Half the South

Every Thanksgiving my grandmother made two dressings, one with oysters for my grandfather, who grew up on the coast, and one without for the rest of us. The oyster one went into her smallest dish, and it was always empty first. This map shows the side dish each of the 50 states searches for more than the rest of the country does, and it explains a lot of family arguments.

The Map: 10 Sides Lead Somewhere, and 3 Big Ones Lead Nowhere

Each state is colored by the side dish it searched for most in November 2025, compared with the national average. Cornbread dressing and gelatin salad each lead in 10 states, collard greens in 9. Three of the most familiar sides, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole and mac and cheese, don’t lead anywhere: people search for them everywhere at about the same rate.

Northeast: Stuffing and Cranberry Sauce, and a Surprise Around New York

New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania lean toward stuffing; Maine, Vermont and Rhode Island toward cranberry sauce, at 1.4 to 1.7 times the national average. The surprise is the New York area: in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, collard greens come out on top. The margins are thin, though. In Connecticut, stuffing trails by a few points.

The South: Cornbread Dressing, and Mississippi Leads the Whole Map

Cornbread dressing leads in 10 states: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. Mississippi searches for it at 6.4 times the national average, the strongest lead on the map, followed by Louisiana at 5.4 and Alabama at 5.1. In much of the South, the stuffing is baked in its own dish rather than inside the bird, and it’s called dressing.

From the author:

My grandmother’s oyster dressing went into a dish the size of a hardback book, and by her count it fed four. My grandfather was one of the four, and I suspect he counted as two. Read the map region by region and a pattern shows up: the strongest leads belong to a family’s own version of something everyone else makes plainer, like dressing instead of stuffing.

A Southern Thanksgiving in South Carolina, From a Reader Who Grew Up in Chicago

I consider myself more of a southern girl than Midwesterner.

Our traditional southern Thanksgiving is:

Deep fried turkey Honey baked ham Baked macaroni & cheese Mashed potatoes with turkey giblet gravy Cornbread Dressing or stuffing Green bean casserole Sweet potato soufflé (with the pecan streusel) Cranberry jelly slices from a can Yeast rolls or Hawaiian rolls

Desserts are a whole other menu!

In Charleston, Thanksgiving Sometimes Means a Lowcountry Boil

I’m from Charleston, so maybe this is more of a lowcountry thing, but sometimes we will even make a lowcountry boil. For those that may not know what that is: shrimp, corn on the cob, red potatoes, onions, and andouille sausage boiled together. You can also add crab, lobster, crawfish, or pretty much any other kind of shellfish. It’s a really fun communal meal and perfect for Thanksgiving.

The Atlantic Coast: Collard Greens From Delaware to Florida, and Deviled Eggs in West Virginia

Collard greens lead in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida, with Delaware the strongest at 2.8 times the national average. South Carolina is the exception on this stretch of coast: there, cornbread dressing edges out collards. West Virginia is the only state where deviled eggs come first.

The Midwest: Corn Casserole, With Three Different Exceptions

Corn casserole leads in Iowa, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri and Illinois, with Iowa searching for it at 2.4 times the national average. The neighbors went their own way: Michigan picks stuffing, Wisconsin scalloped potatoes, and Minnesota gelatin salad, which beats scalloped potatoes there by a hair.

A Family From the Midwest and Texas: Corn, Green Bean Casserole and Pecan Pie

My family is from the Midwest and Texas. It’s funny Macaroni was one of my favorite things to have at thanksgiving but any other Italian food would feel so weird to me.

Just a run down of what we typically have

Turkey (duh)

Stuffing

Corn

Cranberries

Green Bean Casserole

Potatoes (Sweet and/or Mashed)

Rolls/croissants

Macaroni (sometimes)

Apple/Pumpkin Pie plus one other pie that my family just feels like trying for that year. Pecan pie is also pretty popular in Texas.

The Plains: Gelatin Salad, and North Dakota Goes for Potatoes

Gelatin salad, the molded kind with fruit inside, leads in Nebraska, South Dakota and Kansas, with Nebraska at 2.6 times the national average. North Dakota searches for scalloped potatoes at 2.6 times the average, the highest score any state gave a potato dish.

The Mountain West: Utah’s Gelatin Salad and Montana’s Dinner Rolls

Utah searches for gelatin salad at 3.2 times the national average, the strongest lead outside the South, and Idaho follows at 2.6. Montana, Colorado and New Mexico pick dinner rolls; Wyoming picks scalloped potatoes. Arizona is a close call, with gelatin salad barely ahead; in Nevada, collard greens come out on top.

From the author:
My grandmother never made a gelatin salad, and nobody at our table asked for one. She did keep a can of cranberry sauce in the pantry for my grandfather, who liked it sliced, with the ridges showing. One practical note from this map: if you’re hosting someone from another state, ask about their side before you plan the menu. It costs one question and saves one argument.

The Pacific Coast: California Is the Most Average State on the Map

Washington leans toward gelatin salad and Oregon toward scalloped potatoes. California is the odd one: no side reaches even the national average there, and mashed potatoes win with a score just under it, with mac and cheese right behind. In other words, Californians search for every side at about the same rate.

Alaska and Hawaii: Both Pick Gelatin Salad

The two states farthest from the rest agree with each other: gelatin salad leads in both. In Alaska it reaches 2.4 times the national average, with scalloped potatoes second; in Hawaii it leads stuffing, the runner-up.

A Japanese Family in Hawaii Puts Sushi and Crab Potato Salad Next to the Turkey

We’re Japanese and from Hawaii. My dad would make potato salad with imitation crab, one aunt would make or buy sushi, another would make Chinese chicken salad with homemade sesame dressing and another soup salad thing that I never knew what it was called but it had daikon in it. Someone would make fried rice. We also had turkey, ham, stuffing. I was a teenager the first time we all tried cranberry sauce and decided we weren’t doing that again. I was probably late teens the first time we had green bean casserole (courtesy of my cousins new at the time husband who was from the mainland) and that was delicious.

The family in the last story tried cranberry sauce once and decided they weren’t doing that again. The map shows where people search for a dish; behind every state is someone’s table where that dish has been argued about for forty years.

Does your state’s side dish match what your family puts on the table? Tell us in the comments.

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