Animal Crossing: New Horizons (ACNH) Guides

Turkey Day Thanksgiving 2021 Event Guide: Ingredients, Recipes, Rewards

Turkey Day with Franklin is an event in Animal Crossing: New Horizons (ACNH) celebrating the American Thanksgiving holiday with recipes to cook and special prizes to collect! Learn all of the recipes, ingredients, and rewards in this guide.

This event was originally introduced in Version 1.6, but most recently updated in the Version 2.0 Update released on November 3rd, 2021 with minor additions and changes including new DIY Cooking recipes!

Turkey Day Thanksgiving Event Start Time & Date

The Turkey Day event with Franklin is held in Animal Crossing: New Horizons on American Thanksgiving (fourth Thursday in November) every year! This year, it will begin on November 25th, 2021 at 9AM and run until Midnight. Make your copy of the game is updated to at least Version 2.0 to unlock the event.

This date is the same for islands in both the Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere. Note that Resident Services with Isabelle must be unlocked to experience the event.

When the clock strikes 9AM on November 25th, the Turkey Day Thanksgiving event will begin with the following changes on your island:

• Franklin the Turkey will appear outside on your island near Resident Services wearing his chef hat.
• A cooking table with pots, pans, and ingredients will be setup outside Resident Services.
• Dining tables and other holiday decorations will be setup nearby.
• Villagers will put on hats, carry plates and drinks, and hang out around the plaza.
• Special festival Thanksgiving music will start to play.

Turkey Day Thanksgiving Event Activities — What To Do

Once the Turkey Day Thanksgiving event begins in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, you can participate by helping Franklin cook meals for the entire island! We’ve summarized the main activity flow for this event below, with more details on each part later in this complete guide.

• Talk to Franklin outside Resident Services to get recipe ingredient instructions for four different Thanksgiving dishes.
• Collect the recipe ingredients around your island by fishing, diving, and gathering materials.
• Get ingredients you’re missing from villagers by trading fish to them inside their houses.
• Learn hints for the secret ingredient in dishes by trading fish to villagers inside their homes.
• Bring the requested recipe ingredients to Franklin at Resident Services to cook the dish and receive Turkey Day DIY Crafting recipes, items, and Cooking recipes!
• Get extra rewards for correctly giving Franklin the ‘secret’ ingredients to enhance each dish.

Learn more about all of the fun Turkey Day activities you can enjoy on Thanksgiving in the sections below, including specific details on how to get every item reward available in this event.

Cook Recipes For Franklin

To begin the Turkey Day Thanksgiving event, head to Resident Services and find Franklin hanging out by his cooking table. He’ll introduce himself and provide instructions for a dish he needs cooked with a list of specific cooking ingredients.

There are four different dishes that Franklin will ask you to cook for him throughout Turkey Day. Each initial recipe requires different main ingredients that will be disclosed to you like fish, sea creatures, and more.

You’ll need to go around your island looking for these ingredients and bring them back to Franklin at Resident Services to cook his requested dish! After cooking a dish, it will be placed on display in the plaza and you will receive a reward.

Once you’ve completed a dish, talk to Franklin again to learn about the next recipe until you’ve completed all four. You can also add new secret ingredients to your existing dishes as outlined in the next section below.

Enhance Dishes With Off-Recipe Ingredients

After a dish has been completed for the first time with original ingredients and placed on the table for display, you can enhance it by giving secret off-recipe ingredients to Franklin for an extra reward!

When you trade with villagers in their homes during Turkey Day, they will give you all sorts of hints about the secret unconventional ingredient for various recipes. It can be fun to discover these on your own, or you can refer to our complete Recipe List later in this guide.

Gather Ingredients For Franklin

Franklin will ask for a variety of different ingredients from you on Turkey Day to cook each recipe, with most of them disclosed and one secret ingredient left a mystery! You can discover the secret ingredients by talking to your villagers in their homes.

All of the Turkey Day ingredients can be easily gathered on your own at any time around your island like fish, sea creatures, mushrooms, and pumpkins. Be sure to check your house storage to see if you have any already.

Trade For Ingredients From Villagers

If you’re not able to find one of these ingredients on your own for some reason, like say if you don’t have any pumpkin plants to pick or there aren’t any mushrooms on your island, you can obtain them by trading fish to villagers inside their homes.

Just check all of your villager houses until you find someone cooking at a temporarily added kitchen. They’ll ask you for a particular fish, or smell one out of your pockets.

Give the requested fish to the villager and they’ll help you out by giving you a possible ingredient, usually one related to the current recipe you’re working on, but not always.

Perhaps more importantly, villagers will typically give you a hint about the secret ingredient for one of the recipes you need to cook. Pay close attention as you need to use these ingredients to enhance dishes for Franklin and receive bonus rewards.

Unlike past Animal Crossing games, all of the ingredients for the Turkey Day event can be traditionally gathered by you normally — there are no villager-specific special ingredients like Butter, Flour, Milk, Sugar, and Vinegar.

Turkey Day Recipes List

There are four different recipes to cook for Franklin during Turkey Day on Thanksgiving in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Each recipe is composed of regular ingredients to cook the initial dish, plus an extra secret ingredient that can be used to improve the dish afterwards.

Find a complete listing of every recipe and its required ingredients below:

Clam Chowder Recipe

The Clam Chowder recipe can be cooked on Turkey Day using the following ingredients:

• 3 Manila Clams
• Secret: Scallop

You can get Manila Clams by digging up squirting spots on your island’s beaches. The Scallop can be found by diving for sea creatures in the ocean and is used as the secret ingredient to enhance the Clam Chowder afterwards.

Pumpkin Pie Recipe

The Pumpkin Pie recipe can be cooked on Turkey Day using the following ingredients:

• 1 Orange Pumpkin
• 1 Random:
  • Green Pumpkin
  • White Pumpkin
  • Yellow Pumpkin
• Secret: Two Pumpkins not originally requested.

You can grow Pumpkins by purchasing Pumpkin Starts from Leif year-round, or at Nook’s Cranny during October. Franklin will ask you for an Orange Pumpkin and one other random color initially, with the other two remaining colors used as secret ingredients to enhance the Pumpkin Pie afterwards.

Gratin Recipe

The Gratin recipe can be cooked on Turkey Day using the following ingredients, depending on the island hemisphere setting:

Northern Hemisphere

• 1 Random:
  • Mussel
  • Potato
  • Carrot
• 1 Random:
  • Flat Mushroom
  • Round Mushroom
  • Skinny Mushroom
  • Oyster
• Secret: Dungeness Crab

Southern Hemisphere

• 1 Squid
• 1 Random:
  • Sea Urchin
  • Potato
  • Carrot
• Secret: Dungeness Crab

You can find Mushrooms growing around trees during November. Mussels, Oysters, and Sea Urchins can be found by diving for sea creatures in the ocean. Squids can be fished from the ocean. Vegetables like potatoes and carrots can be grown on your island by farming.

The Dungeness Crab can be found by diving as well and is used as the secret ingredient to enhance the Gratin afterwards.

Fish Meunière Recipe

The Fish Meunière recipe can be cooked on Turkey Day using the following ingredients, depending on the island hemisphere setting:

Northern Hemisphere

• 1 Sea Bass
• 1 Random:
  • Dab
  • Olive Flounder
  • Red Snapper
  • Flour
• Secret: Barred Knifejaw

Southern Hemisphere

• 1 Sea Bass
• 1 Random:
  • Olive Flounder
  • Red Snapper
  • Flour
• Secret: Barred Knifejaw

Most of the ingredients above can be easily found by fishing in the ocean around your island, including the Barred Knifejaw used as the secret ingredient to enhance the Fish Meunière afterwards.

Flour can be crafted at a Kitchen using the appropriate Flour cooking recipe requiring 5 Wheat. Wheat can be grown on your island by farming.

Turkey Day Ingredients List

You can find a table below containing all of the possible ingredient items we know so far and exactly how to get them in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Ingredient	How To Get
Barred Knifejaw	Fishing in Ocean
Carrot	Grow using Carrot Starts
Dab	Fishing in Ocean
Dungeness Crab	Dive in Ocean with Wetsuit
Flat Mushroom	Nearby Trees during November
Flour	Craft at a Kitchen using 5 Wheat, grown from Wheat Starts
Green Pumpkin	Grow using Pumpkin Starts
Manila Clam	Dig Squirting Spots on Beach
Mussel	Dive in Ocean with Wetsuit
Olive Flounder	Fish in Ocean
Orange Pumpkin	Grow using Pumpkin Starts
Oyster	Dive in Ocean with Wetsuit
Potato	Grow using Seed Potato
Red Snapper	Fish in Ocean
Round Mushroom	Nearby Trees during November
Scallop	Dive in Ocean with Wetsuit
Sea Bass	Fish in Ocean
Sea Urchin	Dive in Ocean with Wetsuit
Skinny Mushroom	Nearby Trees during November
Squid	Fish in Ocean
White Pumpkin	Grow using Pumpkin Starts
Yellow Pumpkin	Grow using Pumpkin Starts

Turkey Day Thanksgiving Item Rewards & Prizes

It wouldn’t an Animal Crossing event without some rewards to collect for participating and Turkey Day is no exception to that rule! A collection of 12 brand new items and cooking recipes have been added to Animal Crossing: New Horizons specifically for the Turkey Day event.

There are three types of Turkey Day rewards you can get during the Thanksgiving event:

• Four non-craftable items, like the Turkey Day Rug or Cornucopia.
• Eight craftable items in the form of either the recipe or the item itself, like the Turkey Day Hearth or Turkey Day Decorations.
• Four cooking recipes matching the dishes cooked during the Turkey Day event. (new in Version 2.0)

Each time you successfully collect the ingredients for a Thanksgiving dish and cook it for the first time with Franklin during Turkey Day, he will reward you with one of the four non-craftable Turkey Day Set items in the order outlined below.

Recipe	Franklin's Reward
Recipe #1 Clam Chowder	Turkey Day Rug
Recipe #2 Pumpkin Pie	Turkey Day Wall
Recipe #3 Gratin	Turkey Day Flooring
Recipe #4 Fish Meunière	Cornucopia

When you complete all four regular dishes, Franklin will reward you with a set of four Turkey Day Cooking Recipes introduced in Version 2.0 that allow you to cook these event dishes with your own kitchen anytime! Of course, this requires previously unlocking the DIY Cooking feature.

Note that the DIY Cooking feature must already be unlocked prior to playing the event in order to unlock these recipes, so be sure to do so at the Nook Stop Terminal if you haven’t already!

After a dish has been cooked for the first time, you can give Franklin additional secret ingredients not included in the recipe to enhance it. Each time you do so, shiny sparkles get added to the dish and Franklin will reward you with a random piece of the eight craftable Turkey Day Set items. Southern Hemisphere players will receive Spring customized versions.

Finally, if you successfully improve all four dishes on the table with secret ingredients, the final prize from Franklin will give you the complete set of all eight Turkey Day Set Crafting Recipes. Note that he doesn’t actually give you recipe card item, they are simply added to your NookPhone automatically.

Check out the complete collection of eight craftable Turkey Day Set items below:

Turkey Day Casserole

Turkey Day Chair

Turkey Day Decorations

Turkey Day Garden Stand

Turkey Day Hearth

Turkey Day Table

Turkey Day Table Setting

Turkey Day Wheat Decor

Buy Turkey Day Recipes at Nook’s Cranny

It’s worth noting that starting the day after the Turkey Day event, you can purchase two DIY collections in the cabinet of Nook’s Cranny:

• Cozy Turkey Day DIY collection at Nook’s Cranny sells for 19,800 Bells containing all eight of the same item crafting recipes that Franklin gives you for cooking all four secret ingredient dishes. These items will also be sold in the shop’s seasonal sale slot in the bottom right.
• Turkey Day Recipes DIY collection at Nook’s Cranny sells for 6,860 Bells containing all four of the same cooking recipes that Franklin gives you for cooking all four basic ingredient dishes.

All of these Turkey Day items and recipes will remain for sale in Nook’s Cranny through the rest of November. The Nook Friday sale event takes place at the same time too.

This means that the eight craftable items and four cooking recipes aren’t really exclusive rewards to the Turkey Day event. However, the other four non-craftable items first earned for completing the dishes don’t appear to be obtainable in any other way and can be considered exclusive.

In past Animal Crossing games, there was a purple and pink colored furniture set called the Harvest Series, but it has been replaced by the new Turkey Day items in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.