What every cook wants is a little help in the kitchen this time of year. The best we can offer are these holiday workhorses which will make every recipe better. This collection consists of pantry staples like truffle butter, fresh and dried mushrooms, demi-glace, duck fat, fully-cooked chestnuts, French olive oil, and more.

Here are some highlights of our holiday helpers collection, with a few suggestions of how to use them to make your Thanksgiving meal the best ever.

Flavor-Boosting Truffle Butter

Truffle butter is one of those ingredients that will forever change the way you cook. From canapes for pre-meal festivities to the main course, truffle butter always has a place at the table.

Try a few pats tucked under chicken, capon or turkey skin (Ariane’s favorite way to prepare turkey).

Nothing does more for mashed potatoes than a generous knob of truffle butter. When creamed with truffle butter and garlic confit, then topped with shaved truffles, potatoes are simply divine.

Serving rolls? Bake these squishy and delightful truffle butter parker house rolls for something new this year.

Umami-Rich Mushrooms

D’Artagnan offers a wide variety of fresh and dried mushrooms to augment any carnivore’s diet. Our dried mushrooms add earthy intensity to sauces and, and fresh mushrooms add dimension to stuffing or dressing. Start the meal with mushrooms with our creamy mushroom soup recipe (no cans needed here).

This flavorful dressing is beautifully moist and packed with mushrooms (dried and fresh). The versatile recipe can be used as dressing or stuffing, made ahead if needed, and could take additions like sausage if desired.

Fabulous Foie Gras

A traditional holiday favorite in France, foie gras is an easy way to add a note of elegance to your meal. The simplest way to do that is with our prepared foie gras torchon, terrine or spreadable medallion of foie gras. Each of these is ready to serve on a slice of toasted brioche or baguette with a dollop of fruit compote.

For those that want to make something more elaborate, our foie gras cream puff recipe is a delightful surprise for a first course or pre-dinner treat.

The classic preparation of seared foie gras gets a new treatment with our pumpkin spice foie gras recipe. Truly appropriate for the season, most of the components can be made ahead so that all you need to do is toast the bread and sear the foie gras, which is the work of mere minutes.

Bacon, Sausage and Other Charcuterie

There’s no end of uses for bacon in holiday meal prep. We love crunchy bacon in Brussels sprouts, with baked yams and apples, in this amazing bacon-leek crostini recipe and pretty much anywhere we can

Our flavorful sausages made with duck and Armagnac or wild boar and sage are wonderful in bread stuffing. This recipe for wild boar and apple stuffing is a perennial favorite at D’Artagnan, and brioche pairs well with duck sausage in this stuffing recipe.

You’ll find more tasty charcuterie in the holiday helpers collection, and some great Thanksgiving recipes here.