Easy and Healthy Fall Recipes

Fall is just around the corner, and the air is already filled with the scent of apple pies and cinnamon rolls. It’s the time of year for enjoying long walks on crisp evenings, observing how the leaves change color, and gazing at the setting sun.

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Also, fall is a time to have your fridge and pantry restocked with fall harvest. Grocery stores are piling up their shelves with ripe apples, golden squash, fresh parsnips, all freshly picked and awaiting your arrival.

To help you plan your weekly meals as the season nears, we’ve put together our 41 favorite fall recipes. These are simple, quick-to-make soups, dinner ideas, sweet treats, and many more.

But before we get to that, let’s get to know fall foods a little better, shall we? If you really need fall recipe ideas, to go directly to the recipe sections.

What to Eat in Autumn?

Although you can still eat spring harvest produce in the fall since vegetables are available all-year-round, it just feels wrong. It’s a habit we inherited from our ancestors, to eat what’s in season.

According to the USDA’s food database, here’s what fall harvest produce looks like:

• Winter squash: pumpkin, butternut squash
• Root vegetables: turnip, parsnip, sweet potato, yam
• Fruits: apple, grape, pear, grapefruit
• Greens: broccoli, brussels sprout, collard greens, swiss chard

Also, since the air is getting cold, we’re saying a big hello to warm bakes, roasts, stews, and hot soups. It is the spirit of this season, to nurture the body with warm foods and hot beverages.

Fall Soup Recipes – Cozy for the Cold Days

There’s something about watching the soup pot bubbling away, slowly coming together that’s so calming and soothing. For fall (and winter), soups are the best foods to enjoy, warming up the body from within.

For this reason, we thought it’d be great to start the list with our favorite soups. These are the classics and are cooked using the best fall ingredients.

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• Pumpkin Soup: a true comfort food that comes in a velvety texture and tastes super creamy. Serve it with garlic bread and find yourself wanting more.
• Potato Soup: a one-pot soup loaded with bacon and packed with creamy potato deliciousness. It’s a must-have for this fall.
• Split Pea Soup: like potato soup, but without the potato and with protein-packed peas instead. It’s just as creamy and savory and it can help you meet your protein requirements.
• Cabbage Soup: a hearty Asian soup with fresh vegetables and minced pork. It guarantees a full belly and satisfied taste buds.
• Chicken Dumpling Soup: this take on chicken soup has small cubes of vegetables, chunks of chicken thighs, and chewy, creamy dumplings, all simmered to perfection.
• Chicken and Rice Soup: vegetables and rice cooked down in a flavorful broth, then blended slightly to thicken up while maintaining tender bites. I heard it’s a remedy for the common cold and an essential comfort food.

Next on the list of fall recipes: salads.

Fall Salad Recipes – Who Says Salads are Summer Eats?

Salads are too awesome to be limited to just summer or spring— they’re easy, quick, and refreshing. Fall harvest produce can be turned into fine salads, all you need are the right fall recipes.

Here are some easy ones for you to enjoy this season:

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• Mustard Potato Salad: the creamy veg is boiled, halved, mixed with nutty almonds, crunchy carrots, coated in a pungent dressing, and served on a bed of peppery watercress.
• Beetroot and Feta Salad: a refreshing eat made with only fall staples— cooked-through beets, juicy orange, fresh arugula, and nutty walnuts.
• Apple Salad with Cranberry Vinaigrette: cranberries are in season, and besides sauces for desserts, they also make amazing salad dressings. This recipe includes apples, lettuce, walnuts, all tossed in a tangy-sweet vinaigrette dressing.
• Lentil Spinach Salad with Feta and Grapes: lentils, a soup ingredient that also makes for an excellent addition to salads. This recipe mixes them with grapes, feta, spinach, carrots, and we can’t get enough.
• Bistro Dinner Salad: a perfect side dish with a little bit of everything— greens, nuts, soft-boiled eggs, toasty croutons, and crispy bacon. It’s to die for.
• Maple Dijon Vinaigrette Salad: a dressing that turns any greens into a refreshing fall salad. Our fav green choice: kale, arugula, and lettuce of all kinds.

Fall Dinner Recipes – Soothing, Fulfilling, and Delicious

After a long day, all I look forward to is a wholesome meal. Nothing beats the feeling of having a stomach filled with warm food, especially with the air getting colder day by day.

If you’re anything like me, you love to fill your belly with your favorite meals. Here are a few fall recipes that make wholesome dinners:

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• Butternut Squash Casserole: a creamy and savory take on the tender fall staple. Bite-sized chunks of squash get toasty in the oven, cooked through with seasonings, and topped with handfuls of melted mozz.
• Sweet Potato Gnocchi: homemade pasta made with an all-time favorite ingredient — sweet potatoes. They’re boiled until tender, kneaded with flour until perfectly chewy, and finally tossed with herbs to develop flavors.
• Hashbrown Casserole: a comfort food filled with all of your favorite ingredients — potato, beef, cheese, and bacon. When served warm, it’s chewy on top and extra creamy on the inside.
• Scalloped Potatoes: a hassle-free version of the comfort food classic. Stacks of cooked-through potato slices, all coated in a savory cream-milk mixture,with a thick layer of bubbling cheese on top.
• Lasagna: a healthier take on the Italian staple, but with all the best qualities preserved. Between three layers of pasta are dollops of umami bolognese and silky bechamel.
• Chicken Sausage Gumbo: a savory soup with chewy chunks of sausages ladled over hot rice. It can be eaten whenever, but we just feel that fall is the perfect time.

Fall Vegetables Recipe – Farm-to-table Harvest Bakes

If freshly picked produce is your soft spot, you’re in luck. Time for harvest has come, and to embrace the pure flavors of matured vegetables, you need the right fall recipes:

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• Roasted Beets: a tray full of fall veg like beets, sweet potatoes, carrots, onions, all tossed with seasonings and toasted in the oven. The sweet, earthy aromas are well-preserved, bringing you the best of what the season has to offer.
• Roasted Broccoli: with simple veg like broccoli, squash, carrots, and onions, this veggie tray packs flavors and embraces the fall essence. We love the char and the additional nuttiness from the toasted sunflower seeds.
• Roasted Vegetables: an easy tray of vegetables that you can make all year round, but just fits fall so well. Just veg chunks roasted to perfection, no biggie.
• Ratatouille: a deep baking dish layered with colorful veg slices might just be what’s missing from your dinner table. It’s Disney-inspired and it’s full of aromas.
• Sauteéd Swiss Chard: if you’re clueless about what to do with this beet-spinach hybrid, this simple recipe is the one for you. It’s savory and earthy, a perfect side option for dinner.
• Brussels Sprouts Bacon Chestnuts: nutty, toasty, and extra umami, this casserole is the best way to cook up brussels sprouts. It’s especially good to use leftover bacon, and a trick to get children to eat more vegetables.

Fall Dessert Recipes – To-die-for Spiced Treats

Fall desserts are really unique, aren’t they? They’re lightly sweet, warm, and full of spices that fill up the room and spread the coziness around.

If, like us, you’re also into fall cakes, pies, and cookies, make some of these desserts this fall:

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• Apple Pie: we begin the list with a must-have treat. Lightly sweet and warm, It’s made with fall flavors and a lot of love.
• Pumpkin Pie: an iconic dessert that just screams “fall”. The crust on the outside crumbles to your touch, and the filling is creamy, fragrant, and tastes like fall harvest.
• Pumpkin Cheesecake: two iconic desserts fused into one, and it’s just the best thing. It’s got the flavor of a pumpkin pie, but with a savory twist that leaves people begging for more.
• Sweet Potato Casserole: sweet potatoes are just made to be in desserts — creamy, silky, and naturally sweet. We’ve mashed it well, topped it with a crunchy pecan-streusel mixture, plus a layer of melted, charred marshmallows, and we think you should try it.
• Pumpkin Cookies: a scrumptious plate full of soft, warm cookies that you can enjoy with a hot beverage.
• Oatmeal Raisin Cookies: I love cookies, especially when they’re soft, with chewy and nutty bits like this one. It’s a healthy cookie recipe, and it’s extra fragrant.

Fall Chicken Recipes – Easy, Budget-friendly Comfort Foods

I always find myself going back to chicken. It’s the most affordable source of protein, and it can be put in almost any dish — it’s that versatile.

So if you’re looking for ideas to cook chicken this fall, look no further. These simple fall recipes can keep you nourished for weeks:

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• Chicken and Rice Casserole: casseroles are just the easiest, hassle-free meals to make, and this one is fused with flavors. The thighs are moist, covered in fluffy cooked white rice— a true comfort food.
• Chicken Pot Pie: a savory pie filled with creamy deliciousness. Chunks of chicken and veg coated in cream sauce, and you get to watch them flood out as you slice into it.
• Stuffed Chicken Breast: a creative way to have delicious chicken breast every single time. Each chicken roll has tender spinach coated in cheese and is served on a bed of crisp asparagus and chewy mushrooms.
• Chicken Cacciatore: this one-pot meal is full of flavor. Tender chicken strips, and mushrooms, coated in a savory sauce with juicy bits of tomatoes, a perfect bolognese alternative.
• Harvest Chicken Casserole: all of the fall’s best flavors fused into one. Chicken shreds, tender sweet potatoes, crunchy brussels sprouts, cooked rice, chewy dried cranberries, nutty almonds, all well-seasoned and simply wholesome.
• Chicken Stew: a warm stew for a cozy dinner. The savory stew with extra tender meat and veg just can’t wait to have a piece of bread dunked in, deep.

Fall Cocktail Recipes – Hot Drinks, Because It’s Fall

Hot drinks and warm cookies aren’t just winter favorites. In the colder months towards the fall-winter transition, what’s better than a hot beverage under a cozy blanket?

If this sounds good to you, these cocktail recipes will serve you well:

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• Rum and Pineapple Juice: pineapples also grow in the fall, and they make the best drinks. Pineapple juice, rum, and classic fall spices make for a complex flavor profile that will gently warm your taste buds.
• Harry Potter Pumpkin Juice: a fictional treat brought to life. It’s made from the fall fruit, and it’s full of complementing spices.
• Eggnog: this thanksgiving beverage fits well into the cooler months of autumn. It’s silky, frothy, and filled with warm spices.
• Apple Juice and Vodka: five ingredients tied together with a ring of sugar around the rim. It’s got the zing, the sweetness, and warm aromas of fall.
• Mulled Cider Wine: a drink made by quickly simmering juices and spices, then adding a good amount of wine. A perfect cocktail for fall.

Beverages conclude the list of our fall recipes. Let us know in the comments section if any of these fall recipes suit your tastes!