From chocolate-covered turkey to instant noodles that taste like pumpkin pie, brands are getting wild this Thanksgiving. Here are the strangest creations you can actually try.
Every year, brands take one look at Thanksgiving—that sacred celebration of family, gratitude and Grandma’s gravy boat—and think, You know what this needs? Chaos.
This year’s crop of limited-edition releases is less “harvest nostalgia” and more “culinary fever dream.” From chocolate-drenched turkey to instant noodles that somehow taste like both stuffing and dessert, these are the year’s wackiest Thanksgiving experiments we can’t stop side-eyeing … and maybe secretly want to try.
Dubai Chocolate Turkey
Apparently, Reynolds Wrap decided that regular turkey wasn’t decadent enough and unveiled the Dubai Chocolate Turkey, which is exactly what it sounds like. The bird is rubbed with warm spices, covered in melted chocolate, layered with pistachio cream, topped with crispy kataifi pastry and finished with gold leaf. Because, why not gild the gravy?
It’s meant to “bring global flavors to your holiday table,” but mostly it just brings questions. Chief among them: Who looked at the poultry and thought, This needs more ganache?
Meatloaf Mashed Potato Cake
Over at the Idaho Potato Commission, someone apparently thought that dinner should just be cake. Enter the meatloaf mashed potato cake, a savory layer cake made of meatloaf “sponge” and mashed potato “frosting.” It’s piped like a bakery confection, sliced like dessert and guaranteed to confuse at least one guest who thought they were getting a sweet bite, not a savory surprise.
It’s pretty genius if what you’re after is a blend of comfort food and holiday prank. Plus, it proves the enduring power of potatoes—they can be frosting now, too.
Kraft Apple Pie Mac and Cheese
Somewhere in the Kraft test kitchen, a brave soul decided to merge America’s two favorite foods—macaroni and cheese and apple pie—just to see what happened. The result: a sweet-savory hybrid that’s equal parts huh? and maybe?
This limited-edition flavor allegedly blends cheddar cheese with cinnamon-spiced apple notes. We did a taste test of the apple pie mac, and it’s actually better than it sounds!
Cup Noodles Turkey Dinner and Pumpkin Pie Flavors
Nissin Foods obviously saw your family’s complicated Thanksgiving schedule and figured it needed simplifying. After all, why cook all day when you’ve got a microwave? The brand’s new turkey dinner- and pumpkin pie-flavored Cup Noodles promise to deliver the full holiday experience in less than three minutes.
The turkey dinner flavor features herby broth, green beans, cranberries and sweet corn. The pumpkin pie flavor leans sugary, with brown sugar and cinnamon. Essentially, one’s your main course, the other’s your dessert, and they both come in a cup.
Oreo Thanksgiving Dinner Cookie Tin
Just when you thought Oreo had scraped the bottom of the idea barrel, the brand went and turned the whole Thanksgiving table into cookies. Because of course it did. The new Thanksgiving dinner cookie tin features six “traditional” flavors: cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, sweet potato, caramel apple pie, turkey and stuffing, and creamed corn.
It’s a twelve-cookie flight of cookie confusion, each one dipped, drizzled or stuffed to mimic the holiday meal.
Salt & Straw Thanksgiving Ice Cream Flavors
If you’ve ever looked at your Thanksgiving plate and thought, this should be ice cream, Salt & Straw is already one step ahead of you. The Portland-based scoop shop is famous for its annual Thanksgiving series, which has previously featured mashed potato ice cream with gravy swirls and turkey skin brittle folded into caramel.
This year’s lineup includes new riffs on turkey stuffing and Parker House rolls. Because apparently, boundaries are for other holidays. The best part? The brand ships nationwide, so no freezer is safe.
