From pork chops topped with quince sauce to a lentil soup with kumquats, these recipes will lead you into winter.
While November brings us one of the biggest feasting holidays of the year, we also have to eat every day of the month leading up to the occasion. That being said, we’ve gathered up all of the recipes you need to enjoy festive fall offerings without burning yourself out on cranberries, potatoes, and dinner rolls before the big day even arrives.
Cranberries are appearing in grocery stores nationwide and will stay on stands a few weeks after Thanksgiving, offering plenty of time for you to make a cranberry apricot sauce to serve atop pork chops or with toast.
Cranberry rugelach makes for a delicious sweet treat to grace the dessert table at any holiday gathering, from Thanksgiving to Hanukkah. Quince is in season as one of the prime fruits we only really see during fall. With a shape similar to a pear and juiciness that is reminiscent of a ripe apple, quince offers a natural sweetness that makes it the perfect fruit for jams or sauces once cooked down. For a unique approach to quince that you can keep in your cupboard year-round, try pickling them with a blend of coriander, bay, cloves, and other warm spices.
You may have already pulled your space heater or weighted blanket out of storage to help make chilly mornings and evenings a bit more bearable. Keep the warmth coming with a few soup recipes using seasonal delicacies like sunchoke, golden beets, and kumquats. Yes, kumquats can make an amazing addition to soup, adding a sweet citrusy flavor when combined with lentils and bacon.
Add some greens to your breakfast, lunch, or dinner with bok choy, arugula, and fennel; all are at their peak as we move into late fall. Whichever of the dishes below you indulge in this month, you can sleep easy (and with a full stomach) knowing that you are taking advantage of the best offerings the month of November has to showcase.
There’s nothing easier to make on your Thanksgiving menu than homemade cranberry sauce. Spice it up with dried fruit, juice, citrus zest, and/or spices.
Bright but not too sweet, this relish from Cindy Daniel of Healdsburg Shed in Northern California is great with chicken or turkey—or chopped up and tossed into salads.
Your friends will describe this unexpected combo of shishito peppers and kumquats as “magic.” This recipe comes from Ashley Rodriguez‘s cookbook, Let’s Stay In: More Than 120 Recipes to Nourish the People You Love.
A dinner party of bold, salty tapas (Spanish-style small plates) gains an element of freshness from this slightly sweet, crunchy salad, created for us by chef Ryan Pollnow of Aatxe (“Ah-chay”) restaurant in San Francisco. You’ll have a bit of leftover vinaigrette for your next salad.
This ultra-creamy, Middle Eastern–style appetizer dip created by cookbook author Janet Fletcher is also excellent with raw cucumbers. If you make your own yogurt cheese, you’ll need to start it 24 hours ahead of making this dish.
When he’s cooking in the wild, Elias Cairo, head salumist of Olympia Provisions in Portland, likes to make a heartier salad using ingredients that stay beautiful even if they get banged around a bit in the cooler.
Anyone who’s attempted to bake with quince knows the knobby and at times rock-hard fruit isn’t easy on the home cook. But there’s a delicious way to enjoy it with less labor-intensive peeling and coring. When you simmer them whole, they soften, and prep becomes a snap for turning them into a sauce.
This salad may be simple–note the very short ingredient list–but it is full of exotic, refreshing flavor.
This soup has two layers of kumquats–cooked in the soup to become mellow and tender, and finely chopped with parsley for a bright topping.
This dish delivers a lot of sophistication for not much time spent in the kitchen. The chicken rests on a bed of mild autumn vegetables, enriched with cream and wine.
Pommes Anna, a classic French dish of thinly sliced potatoes, takes on an appealing sharpness in this turnip version. Although you can use any pie pans, metal ones brown the turnips most evenly; you’ll also need a handheld slicer to get them super thin.
Fennel seeds and rosemary perfume every bite of this tenderest of cuts. You can also roast the lamb in a 450°F oven (meat side up) until it reaches an internal temperature of 140°F, about 25 minutes. Paired with grilled asparagus and long-simmered white beans, it makes a delicious dinner.
We love the play between the delicate, slightly sweet purée of turnips and parsnips and the savory cheese with herb-enhanced meatballs. Serve this soup as the first course for a fall dinner party.
What’s more fall than a salsa made of apples? The apples are seared slightly alongside chopped shallots before being tossed in a dressing of lemon juice, dijon mustard, and fresh herbs. The texture plays nicely alongside the hazelnut crust on a soft white fish like halibut.
Nutty sunchokes, also known as Jerusalem artichokes, give this soup a deep flavor. Find them at farmers’ markets and well-stocked grocery stores through late fall.
Chef-athlete Gregory Gourdet of Departure Restaurant + Lounge in Portland gives a healthy, classic meat-and-vegetable combo an unexpected Southeast Asian flavor twist with this paleo pork dish.
This recipe, inspired by a dish we had at Mister Jiu’s restaurant in San Francisco’s Chinatown, is simpler than chef Brandon Jew’s version but delivers the same umami goodness. Serve with steamed rice.
Make the most of your fresh farmers’ market beets with this soup, which uses the delicious leaves as well as the beets themselves.
Tender chicken tops a crisp pancake for a dinner that’s better than takeout, and just as fast.
A trip to New York inspired Jeannie Lee of Marin County, California, to develop this rich, cranberry-filled cookie. Plan to make and chill the cranberry filling before beginning the cookie dough. If you have leftover filling, use it as you would a cranberry relish or jam. You can store the cookies airtight for up to two days.
Cooking this homey dessert in your campfire is as simple as moving the low-burning logs out into a frame to create a bed of embers in the center. Whipped crème fraîche gives it a touch of sophistication.
From Jenn Louis, chef at Portland’s Lincoln and Sunshine Tavern restaurants, these nut meringues topped with marmalade-like conserva and crème fraîche are irresistible (the dessert’s Italian name, brutti ma buoni, means “ugly but good”). For crisp meringues, bake them on a dry day.
We use Mexican limes (the West Coast name for Key limes) to create these creamy pies. While limes may seem like a summer fruit, Key limes come into season as we get into peak fall.
Addictive chocolate hazelnut spread stars in our two-tone version of chocolate bark. Making bark is easy—just melt chocolate, spread it out, and add your favorite toppings. We added one important step, though: Temper the chocolate (carefully melt and cool it to specific temperatures while adding large chunks of unmelted chocolate) so the bark stays shiny and snappy.
Portland pasty chef Michelle Vernier cooks the fruit ahead so the pie won’t collapse in the oven; a simple trick for the home baker who wants to prep as much in advance as possible.
Kristen Murray, the pastry chef and owner of Maurice restaurant in Portland, learned to candy backyard kumquats with her great-aunt Crys. The day we visited Maurice, she made this simplified version with a kumquat-mandarin cross (mandarinquats), which work well, too. Save extra syrup for flavoring sparkling water.
This soup has two layers of kumquats–cooked in the soup to become mellow and tender, and finely chopped with parsley for a bright topping.
This dish delivers a lot of sophistication for not much time spent in the kitchen. The chicken rests on a bed of mild autumn vegetables, enriched with cream and wine.
Pommes Anna, a classic French dish of thinly sliced potatoes, takes on an appealing sharpness in this turnip version. Although you can use any pie pans, metal ones brown the turnips most evenly; you’ll also need a handheld slicer to get them super thin.
Fennel seeds and rosemary perfume every bite of this tenderest of cuts. You can also roast the lamb in a 450°F oven (meat side up) until it reaches an internal temperature of 140°F, about 25 minutes. Paired with grilled asparagus and long-simmered white beans, it makes a delicious dinner.
We love the play between the delicate, slightly sweet purée of turnips and parsnips and the savory cheese with herb-enhanced meatballs. Serve this soup as the first course for a fall dinner party.
What’s more fall than a salsa made of apples? The apples are seared slightly alongside chopped shallots before being tossed in a dressing of lemon juice, dijon mustard, and fresh herbs. The texture plays nicely alongside the hazelnut crust on a soft white fish like halibut.
Nutty sunchokes, also known as Jerusalem artichokes, give this soup a deep flavor. Find them at farmers’ markets and well-stocked grocery stores through late fall.
Chef-athlete Gregory Gourdet of Departure Restaurant + Lounge in Portland gives a healthy, classic meat-and-vegetable combo an unexpected Southeast Asian flavor twist with this paleo pork dish.
This recipe, inspired by a dish we had at Mister Jiu’s restaurant in San Francisco’s Chinatown, is simpler than chef Brandon Jew’s version but delivers the same umami goodness. Serve with steamed rice.
Make the most of your fresh farmers’ market beets with this soup, which uses the delicious leaves as well as the beets themselves.
A trip to New York inspired Jeannie Lee of Marin County, California, to develop this rich, cranberry-filled cookie. Plan to make and chill the cranberry filling before beginning the cookie dough. If you have leftover filling, use it as you would a cranberry relish or jam. You can store the cookies airtight for up to two days.
Cooking this homey dessert in your campfire is as simple as moving the low-burning logs out into a frame to create a bed of embers in the center. Whipped crème fraîche gives it a touch of sophistication.
From Jenn Louis, chef at Portland’s Lincoln and Sunshine Tavern restaurants, these nut meringues topped with marmalade-like conserva and crème fraîche are irresistible (the dessert’s Italian name, brutti ma buoni, means “ugly but good”). For crisp meringues, bake them on a dry day.
We use Mexican limes (the West Coast name for Key limes) to create these creamy pies. While limes may seem like a summer fruit, Key limes come into season as we get into peak fall.
Addictive chocolate hazelnut spread stars in our two-tone version of chocolate bark. Making bark is easy—just melt chocolate, spread it out, and add your favorite toppings. We added one important step, though: Temper the chocolate (carefully melt and cool it to specific temperatures while adding large chunks of unmelted chocolate) so the bark stays shiny and snappy.
Portland pasty chef Michelle Vernier cooks the fruit ahead so the pie won’t collapse in the oven; a simple trick for the home baker who wants to prep as much in advance as possible.
Kristen Murray, the pastry chef and owner of Maurice restaurant in Portland, learned to candy backyard kumquats with her great-aunt Crys. The day we visited Maurice, she made this simplified version with a kumquat-mandarin cross (mandarinquats), which work well, too. Save extra syrup for flavoring sparkling water.