Savory Pies and Tarts

For this main-dish tart, chef Timothy Hollingsworth fills a sturdy crust with savory-sweet bacon marmalade and a spectacular pile of roasted and raw vegetables.

Blogger Mimi Thorisson spreads store-bought puff pastry with mustard-and-shallot bechamel, then layers it with ham and cheese before baking it into a crisp, rich, croque monsieur-like tart.

Chef Ludo Lefebvre uses the pungent, soft cow-milk cheese Époisses to flavor this delicious tart. He adds ham and apples as well, to balance the rich filling.

Store-bought puff pastry makes easy work of these adorable spinach-and-feta puffs.

This Italian riff on spanakopita features sautéed greens mixed with soppressata and ricotta salata in a flaky Parmigiano crust.

This luscious, quiche-like pie is a mash-up of two Southern favorites—tangy pimento cheese and silky tomato pie. The riper and more flavorful your tomato is, the better the pie will be. Crumble bacon over the top to really push it over the edge!

These buttery, flaky, beef-filled mini pies are quick and impressive.

This elegant puff pastry is quick to make. You’ll be surprised at how delicious butternut squash is for dessert. Look for a squash with a long neck.

"To make a proper tarte flambé, you need a wood-burning oven with a stone floor," explains Jean-Georges Vongerichten of the thin-crusted Alsatian pizza topped with bacon, onions and fromage blanc. Here, he folds those same basic ingredients (replacing the fromage blanc with cheddar) into a light custard and bakes it in a buttery pastry crust. "Not everyone has a pizza oven at home, so I decided to make it in the form of a quiche."

It looks, smells, and tastes like pizza, with one delicious difference: The crust is made of mashed potatoes. You'll have to use a fork to eat this pie, since the slices aren't sturdy enough to hold in your hand.

Chef Alex Raij made this big, impressive pie, which she calls pastel de parra, to snack on throughout the weekend; a big slice is also satisfying as a meal.

Kelsie Kerr teaches the basics of preparing seasonal recipes. The buttery dough for her savory onion tart, for instance, is great with all kinds of fillings, like fruit. To make the crust flaky, keep the butter and dough cold.

Kenny Rochford loves to pair this tart with citrusy Medlock Ames Sauvignon Blanc. "This area is so hot, I'd have bet money on that grape not succeeding here," he says, "but I had to eat my hat."

Pairing: A medium-bodied red with some tannin will contrast with the mushrooms. Consider one from Bordeaux or Tuscany.

Natchitoches, Louisiana, is renowned for its meat pies. Kelly English serves his mini version with a dipping sauce that combines two quintessential Southern ingredients: buttermilk and hot sauce.

Paul Roberts adds nutmeg to the mushrooms in this buttery tart because the warm spice works well with the savory complexity of a Cabernet Sauvignon.

With a golden layer of puff pastry topped by caramelized onions, soft potatoes, bacon and tangy Reblochon cheese, this tart is lighter than the sum of its parts, making for a satisfying fall dish that's great any time of day. The Reblochon, a washed-rind cheese from France, can be replaced with a robust Taleggio from northern Italy or the smooth French soft-ripened cow's-milk cheese Saint-André.

Instead of appearing in a soup, squash gets cut into rings, caramelized and baked in a tart that can be served with a salad as a starter, or as an unusual side dish.

Rainwater Madeira, a fortified wine, gives Brian Hill's pub dish a caramelly sweetness.

The creamy sweet potato filling in this sweet-potato pie is actually fairly simple, but Donald Link opts to prepare the crust by hand; he also tosses the salad with mustard greens, which can be tricky to find. To make it even easier, prepare the crust in a food processor and substitute watercress for the mustard greens in the salad.

This is one of my favorites. It’s a bacon and onion filling bound with soft, ripened goat cheese and a ballsy Gruyère, poured fairly shallowly into a delicate pâte brisée. Pay attention while you make the tart crust; it’s one you can adapt for a thousand fillings.—Andrew Zimmern

Wine Pairing: Serve this brilliantly simple tart with a crisp white Burgundy.

Julianne Jones makes this savory rectangular tart with the ingredients typically found in ratatouille: eggplant, zucchini and tomatoes. “You arrange the vegetables nicely in the flaky crust, then tuck in thinly shaved cheese,” she says. “I love serving the tart at dinner parties because it’s aesthetically impressive.”

In the height of summer, when tomatoes are at their most delicious, Food & Wine’s Laura Rege showcases them in this simple, fresh tart. She layers and bakes phyllo with breadcrumbs to create an extra-crispy base, then spreads the crust with a mix of mayo and cream cheese before topping the tart with colorful, juicy, glorious tomatoes.

Ricotta makes this variation on vegetable quiche, from L.A. chef Roxana Jullapat, extra moist and light. You’ll want to hang on to her winner of a piecrust recipe, made with butter and cream cheese—it’s flaky, golden and crisp.