Thanksgiving
2220 recipes found
Couscous Salad With Dried Cranberries and Pecans
This combination of pecans, cranberries and couscous has the feel and flavor of a classic autumn side dish without the heaviness. It can also be made a day in advance.
Pumpkin Crumb Cake
This pumpkin-packed crumb cake is everything that is wonderful about fall baking. Warmly spiced, moist pumpkin cake topped with spicy, crispy streusel and topped with an optional but delicious glaze. It is just the thing for an afternoon snack, and just as good for breakfast the next day. You can use any pumpkin spice blend you like, but the homemade recipe included below includes a bit of cardamom, which isn’t usually included in pumpkin spice blends, but brings a hint of citrusy floral flavor. The pumpkin-spice glaze is optional, but if you have the time, don’t skip it. It adds a nice extra hint of sweetness and spice.
Apple Pie Bars
This delivers all the pleasure of apple pie — a buttery crust and topping sandwiching juicy spiced apples — without the need to roll out a dough. A simple dough is pressed into a bottom crust and squeezed into crumbles for the top. You can arrange the topping into a lattice, stripes, or other decorative pattern if you’d like. The whole pan easily serves 24 and can be cut into smaller bars if you want to serve an even-bigger crowd. These bars are best the day they are made, but they can be refrigerated for up to 2 days. Or, they can be frozen immediately after cooling and kept in the freezer for up to 1 month. Just make sure to thaw them before serving.
Charcuterie Board
A charcuterie board refers to an impressive spread of cured meats, and this festive take adds cheeses with fun accoutrements such as roasted nuts, tangy olives and fresh vegetables, which brighten the meal. It even includes a smooth pâté, decadent smoked fish and a homemade whipped ricotta that serves as both a dip and a spread. Whipped ricotta is a cinch to make, transforming the grainy, dense cheese into something light and airy. This type of grand spread is perfect for entertaining and is extremely flexible — simply curate any combination of meats and cheeses with varying textures.
Maple Tart With Oatmeal Cookie Crust
Maple syrup and oatmeal are usually relegated to the breakfast table, but here they create a crowd-pleasing tart. Creamy maple pudding would be lovely on its own, but truly shines nestled into a cookielike oatmeal crust. Top it with a dollop of whipped cream laced with cinnamon and nutmeg.
Skillet Caramel-Apple Crisp
The caramel sauce does double duty in this warm, comforting crisp. First, it lends sweetness to the apple filling, and second, it yields a lot of leftovers to serve alongside. Use firm, tart apples like Mutsu, Jonathan or Honeycrisp, which will hold their shape during baking. Room-temperature apples work best here: If your apples are cold from the refrigerator, the caramel sauce may seize a bit. Save any extra caramel sauce in your fridge for a rainy day — that is, of course, if you haven't eaten it all.
Pumpkin Pie Milkshake
As any true pumpkin lover can attest, there’s more than one way to get your pie fix, and a milkshake just might be the most winning substitution: It’s creamy and has the same whipped-cream topper. Add the spices you most like in your pie — go heavier on the ginger if that’s your thing, or load up on cinnamon — and adjust the sweetness to your crowd’s tastes. Even if you don’t drink whisky, there’s a time and a place for bourbon, and this is it. Add a splash or two for the adults; they’ll thank you.
Caramel Apples
An easy recipe for making homemade caramel apples, this can be doubled or tripled easily to make more. Once dipped, the apples can be rolled in chopped nuts, candy, or drizzled with chocolate for a little extra flair. Be sure to start with room temperature apples as cold apples will cause the caramel mixture to harden too quickly making it difficult to work with.
Pumpkin Soup With Ancho and Apple
Chances are the contents of that can of pumpkin purée you may be using for pie, soup, biscuits, custard, ice cream or bread came from Illinois. It’s the state that produces the most pumpkin for canning. This vibrant soup, from the chef Rick Bayless, an owner of Frontera Grill and Topolobampo in Chicago, is inspired by Mexico, where pumpkin is as typical an ingredient as the pepitas, ancho chile, canela and crema that are also in the recipe. His original calls for fresh squash or pumpkin — about 1 1/2 pounds, peeled, seeded, cut in chunks and added to the pot with the apple. But Mr. Bayless was amenable to adapting his recipe for canned purée, paying homage to Illinois.
Pumpkin Bundt Cake With Maple Brown-Butter Glaze
Bundt cakes are classic showstoppers — big, lofty and usually dressed in elegant drizzles and drips of glaze. Here, a dense, moist cake full of warm fall spices and pumpkin purée is encased in a layer of rich, nutty brown-butter maple glaze. Feel free to make it a day before you plan to serve it: This cake keeps well at room temperature, and you might think it's even better on the second day. Just make sure to keep it covered and resist the urge to shave off a slice every time you walk by. If you can find it, use organic confectioners' sugar for the glaze. It's made from raw sugar and uses tapioca rather than cornstarch as its anticaking agent. It will give the glaze a richer taste and smoother texture than conventional confectioners’ sugar — a tip picked up from Stella Parks.
Fluffy Pumpkin Pancakes
Crisp fall mornings call for cozy breakfasts, and these fluffy pumpkin pancakes are just the thing to warm you right up. Packed with pumpkin and a sprinkle of cinnamon and vanilla, they feel and taste special, but are quick to stir together. The buttermilk and pumpkin make the batter quite thick, but they will spread. Be sure to leave lots of room between the pancakes when cooking them.
Brown-Butter Orzo With Butternut Squash
In this autumnal one-pot meal, rice-shaped orzo is cooked with stock and butternut squash until it’s tender and creamy, a little like risotto but without as much stirring. Brown butter, lemon zest and sage add depth of flavor, while red-pepper flakes give this zip and heat. An optional dollop of ricotta intensifies the creaminess but feel free to skip it for a lighter dish. This recipe also works well as a hearty side for roasted meats and fish.
Mushroom Bread Pudding
Wonderful served as a brunch centerpiece or as a holiday side, this rich meatless casserole can be assembled in advance, refrigerated overnight, then baked just before serving. You could certainly prepare it day-of and let the bread soak for 15 minutes before baking, but allowing it to sit overnight will make it more tender. Delicate brioche is the ideal bread for this pudding, and it is available in most supermarkets, often in the form of hamburger rolls, which are a good size and shape for this dish. Challah is also a good option, but it’s a bit denser, so it may take more than 15 minutes for it to soak up the custard.
Gingerbread Snickerdoodles
These cookies combine the crackly outsides and tender, chewy centers of snickerdoodles with the warming ginger and molasses of gingerbread. It’s a more nuanced version of winter gingerbread and a punchier take on snickerdoodles. If you’re in a rush, you can bake the cookies without first chilling the dough. It’ll be too soft to roll in the cinnamon sugar, but you can scoop the dough right onto the pan and sprinkle the cinnamon sugar on top of the rounds. You won’t get as even a coating, but will still get the crackle effect.
Sticky Cranberry Gingerbread
Sticky, spicy and full of cranberries, this gingerbread is perfect for the holidays. The recipe has been designed to make ahead, and will taste as good 2 days after baking as it does on the same day. (It will keep for 4 to 5 days.) To store it, wrap it well, stick it in the fridge and then bring to room temperature before serving. Whipped cream or crème fraîche, spiked with a little bourbon if you like, is nice on the side.
Butternut Squash Congee With Chile Oil
Congee comes in many textures and flavors, under a number of different names, and is eaten widely across East, South East and South Asia. This particular version of congee is not traditional to any region or cuisine, but is a seasonal interpretation, incorporating butternut squash for a warming, naturally sweet, earthy glow. The chile oil delivers a lively counter to the mellow nature of this congee, delivering both heat and savoriness. Using leftover rice gives you a hearty congee in just about 30 minutes, but make sure you give it a good stir at the end to further break up the rice and create a creamy finish. Butternut can be an unwieldy vegetable and many find it hard to handle, so try cutting it into smaller pieces before slicing the skin off with a sharp knife or peeler. Quicker still, opt for pre-cut cubes of butternut which can often be found at the supermarket.
Sweet Potato Casserole Pie
This showstopping dessert, which is inspired by the classic Thanksgiving side dish, is really a pie baked in a springform pan. (Don’t try it in a pie pan because the filling will likely overflow.) What makes this dessert a winner is the textural contrast between the creamy sweet potato filling, the crisp pecan crust and the gooey marshmallow topping. Here are a few tips for best results: Roast the sweet potatoes instead of boiling them because it enhances their flavor, and use smaller sweet potatoes because they are naturally sweeter than larger varieties. Also, it may seem fussy, but chilling the cooked potatoes, then aggressively whipping them aerates them, resulting in a silkier texture. Once baked and cooled, refrigerate the pie until right before it’s time to serve.
Pumpkin Cookies
More like portable cakes, these spiced pumpkin cookies are delightfully tender and moist, simple, and absolutely divine with a cup of coffee. Eat them just as they are, or give them a dusting of powdered sugar or more ground cinnamon, a drizzle of a confectioners’ sugar glaze, or maybe a swipe of cream-cheese frosting. These little guys could even work as the top and bottom of the perfect pumpkin whoopie pie. Because these cookies are so moist, it’s best to store them layered between parchment or wax paper in an airtight container at room temperature. You could also freeze them and thaw before serving.
Ube Pie
Ube, a purple yam native to the Asian tropics, is a common ingredient in Filipino desserts. It’s no surprise that colorful dishes made with ube have done well on Instagram, prompting the invention of drinks, custards, cakes and sweet breads in cities across the United States. This recipe is adapted from Café 86 in Artesia, Calif., where co-owner Ginger Dimapasok serves an ube chess pie that’s particularly popular around Thanksgiving. The earthy, vanilla flavor of the yam adds color and depth to the sweet, buttery filling. You can find frozen mashed ube — and ube flavoring, which ensures a deep purple hue — at Filipino markets. Okinawa sweet potatoes, or Japanese purple sweet potatoes, can also be substituted.
Apple Cider Whoopie Pies
Their name may be fun to say, but whoopie pies aren’t really pies at all but rather soft, cakelike cookie sandwiches. These are inspired by a classic apple cider doughnut and, true to form, are dusted with cinnamon sugar. Apple cider that's been reduced and a bit of apple butter work in tandem to subtly flavor the fluffy cakes, and good old cream cheese frosting makes the ideal filling. For beautiful, uniformly sized cakes, use a 2-tablespoon cookie scoop to portion the batter for baking. If you don't have one, they might bake up a little wonky, but they’ll still taste delightful.
Brown Butter Skillet Cornbread
This lightly sweet cornbread has a crunchy, buttery crust, which comes from baking it in a hot skillet. If you have a cast-iron pan, this is the time to use it. The heavy, heat-retaining material will give you the darkest color (which equals the most flavor). But any large ovenproof skillet will work. And if you don’t have a skillet big enough to hold all the batter, you can either halve the recipe or bake the cornbread in 9-by-13-inch pan. (Brown the butter first in a saucepan.) Your bread won’t have the same dark crust, but the moist crumb flavored with brown butter and maple syrup is ample recompense.
Brussels Sprouts With Walnuts and Pomegranate
Roasting brussels sprouts brings out their nutty sweetness and keeps them crisp-crunchy around the edges. Tossing them with walnuts and tangy, jewel-like pomegranate seeds adds texture and brightness. It’s worth seeking out pomegranate molasses (widely available in most large grocery stores) to finish this dish. But if you can't find it, don’t let it stop you from make this celebration-worthy side.
The Marrow's Ginger Stout Cake
This is a rich, fragrant ginger cake with a crunchy raw-sugar coating and moist crumb. The combination of grated fresh ginger root and powdered ginger, along with black pepper and cloves, gives it a particularly intense spice flavor. Make sure to use a good stout here. Since you’ll only use part of a bottle, choose one you’d be happy to finish off while the cake is in the oven. As with most gingerbread, this is a good keeping cake, and can be made a day or two ahead. Store it wrapped in foil at room temperature. Then serve it with cream whipped with a little crème fraiche or sour cream for tartness, which will offset all that crunchy sugar coating the cake.
Roasted Pear Quick Bread
Roasted pears add juiciness and depth of flavor to this otherwise simple quick bread. You can peel the pears if you want, but they add a sturdiness to the roasted fruit and a nice texture to the finished loaf. The addition of streusel takes this bread over the top, but it is excellent without it, too, if you feel like skipping a step.