Every family has their own Thanksgiving meal traditions. Perhaps your family loves chestnut stuffing, or perhaps the only string bean casserole you'll eat is your Aunt Sonia's. So, when you visit another family's home for Thanksgiving dinner, one of two things can happen: You either bemoan the fact that some of your favorite holiday dishes are missing or are made in an entirely unfamiliar way, or you discover something new that you wish your family would make one of their own traditions.

If you've ever joined an Italian-American family for Thanksgiving, you'll most likely choose the latter and wish you could have lasagna with or without your turkey each and every year. While there are no statistics available on how many of the over 20 million Italian-Americans living in the U.S.

serve lasagna on Thanksgiving Day, chefs, writers, and everyone's favorite Italian actor and food aficionado, Stanley Tucci, have waxed poetic about the lasagnas their families serve at some point during the Thanksgiving meal . For some, lasagna is a delicious alternative to turkey that they can make ahead of time . For others, it's a delicious pasta course served between appetizers and the beloved bird, while for some families, it's simply a side dish.

A traditional celebratory meal It's unsurprising that lasagna ended up on the menu for one of America's most celebrated days of the year, as it's often considered a celebratory dish. In several regions of Italy, lasagna was considered a delicacy or was.