Fall Recipes

Old-style pubs have it right: Sitting down to a generous helping of shepherd's pie is a true pleasure; making it is happily simple. We've added sharp cheddar to our mashed potatoes for a snappy topping.

Drying the bread cubes and cooking the vegetables a day in advance helps this stuffing come together quickly on Thanksgiving Day. 

This year, try a flavorful glaze made with orange juice, brown sugar, and vinegar on your Thanksgiving bird.

A Thanksgiving-worthy soup blends tangy, sweet apples with mellow butternut squash. Meanwhile cumin, coriander, ginger, and cayenne add vibrant flavors.

Baking a pie from scratch takes a little patience, but watching your friends and family enjoy the results makes it all worthwhile.

Rich, buttery, and oh-so-simple, the classic pecan pie has earned its place as a Thanksgiving mainstay. It's also a wonderful choice to make ahead of time since it will need several hours to cool before serving. Dollop with freshly whipped and barely sweetened cream to balance out the bold sweetness of this pie. 

This recipe for basic roasted pumpkin is so simple and very versatile. You can eat the sweet, fibrous flesh straight out of the shell with some olive oil, salt, and pepper, or you can get creative. Once you've roasted the pumpkin as directed below, consider making Pumpkin Wedges with Sage or Indian-Spiced Pumpkin.

This traditional holiday bird brings much more to the table than just great taste. Our version, which is packed with protein, is rubbed with a blend of parsley, rosemary, sage, thyme, and garlic.

To ace this American tradition, we combine different varietals of apples that each have their own nuanced flavors and textures in the filling for this apple pie. The sublime result is a bold, aromatic filling bubbling inside a golden-brown double crust. This pie takes about an hour of hands on making and an hour to bake but allow time for the apples to meld with the sugar and spices before prepping the filling and making the pie—and allow plenty of time for the pie to cool before slicing and serving.

This incredibly simple stuffing has a traditional flavor everyone will love. It's a wonderful complement to Salt and Pepper Turkey.

We like to use soft country white bread (which is sliced thicker than regular sandwich bread) in this classic stuffing/dressing because it absorbs flavors best. You can also try a fancier rustic loaf, such as pane Pugliese.

We've made the quintessential Thanksgiving casserole better than ever by combining fresh green beans, homemade mushroom sauce, and savory fried shallots.

This hybrid dessert is an irresistible cross between apple pie and a fruit crisp. It's easy to make—all you need are six ingredients and you probably already have most of them on hand: butter, light-brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, and lemon juice. Most importantly, you'll need five pounds of tart apples such as Granny Smiths. The apples are sliced and layered with a crumb mixture similar to that used for a fruit crisp. We suggest using a springform pan to accommodate the tall layers.

This fun, cinnamon-scented twist on apple pie can feed a crowd while wow-ing them at the same time. The same homemade pie dough forms both the base crust and the topping—the magic happens when a sweetened cinnamon-butter is spread on half of the dough and rolled up like a log and chilled. Once sliced into swirly rounds, they're shingled on top of the baking sheet of spiced apples and baked until golden brown and bubbly. You can find a step-by-step photo guide to assembling the top crust here. 

This basic vegetable soup can be made with any combination of fresh or frozen vegetables, so the soup will taste a little different each time. The recipe can easily be doubled or even tripled to feed all the vegetable soup fans at your table.

Instead of sugar pumpkins, you can use other winter squash in our Roasted Pumpkin Soup recipe. Kabocha, calabaza, and Hubbard are the best alternatives. Choose a squash that feels heavy for its size and is free of soft spots. The soup can be garnished with toasted pepitas or a dollop of sour cream—or both.

In between bars and a crowd-friendly sheet cake is this autumnal dessert. Moist and tender pumpkin spice cake is lavished with cream cheese frosting for bars that are simply irresistible. 

Sweet roasted butternut squash tempers the heat of fresh ginger in this vegan soup. Coconut milk is swirled in for creaminess, while toasted squash seeds add a pleasing crunch.

If you love the apple-cider donuts often sold at farmers' markets, you'll love this cake! Baked in a Bundt pan, it's essentially a giant cakey donut, made a little more wholesome with whole-wheat flour. A blend of olive oil and applesauce helps keep it moist and makes it our favorite fall dessert. This recipe appears in our cookbook, A New Way to Bake and Martha made this recipe on Martha Bakes.

Choose firm, smooth eggplants for best results when making this incredible dish. We bake rather than fry ours for less mess and less fat.

This recipe makes plenty for the Thanksgiving feast and leftover turkey sandwiches.

The great thing about stuffing is that it's almost impossible to mess up: A little more of this or less of that won't affect your results too much. The onething you want to have just the right amount of is liquid, to keep the stuffing moist but not soggy.

This easy and delicious fall side dish only requires a few minutes of hands-on time, leaving you free to work on the rest of the meal.

Sage adds a savory note to sweet-potato casserole. Best of all: It can be made two days before the meal.