Iconic Fall Flavors: Mushrooms, Apples, Butternut Squash

By Food & Wine
Updated September 30, 2019
Warm, rich flavors come alive with apples, mushrooms and butternut squash.
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Wild Mushroom and Burrata Bruschetta

Credit: © John Kernick
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Creamy burrata and hearty, earthy wild mushrooms pair for the perfect fall appetizer.

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Pork Chops with Apple, Fennel and Sage

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Boneless, thin-cut pork chops can be fully cooked in three minutes, a fraction of the time it takes to cook thicker chops. Here, Melissa Rubel Jacobson combines the meat with a few distinctly autumnal ingredients: sage, apple and hard cider.

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Butternut Squash Soup with Apple and Smoked Cheddar

Credit: © Con Poulos
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This warm fall soup's key ingredient is its smoked-cheddar garnish.

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Mushroom, Butternut Squash & Gruyère Tart

Credit: © Anson Smart
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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.

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Curry-Roasted Butternut Squash and Chickpeas

Credit: © John Kernick
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This Indian twist on a dish of roasted butternut squash is super easy: After tossing the squash and chickpeas with curry and cayenne, Melissa Rubel roasts them, then drizzles the dish with a cooling cilantro-spiked yogurt sauce.

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Wild Mushroom Soup with Parmesan Toasts

Credit: © Deirdre Rooney
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Grace Parisi created this recipe almost by accident. When she was cooking dinner for her kids, one of them knocked into her while she was adding a few tablespoons of chicken broth to a pan of sautéed mushrooms. She poured in a lot more broth than she intended to and ended up with a terrific mushroom soup.

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Mashed Potatoes with Butternut Squash

Credit: © Frances Janisch
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For ultra fluffy potatoes, Grace Parisi presses them through a ricer. To achieve a similar texture, pass the potatoes through a food mill or a fine-mesh sieve. If you choose to mash them by hand, be gentle; otherwise, the potatoes will turn gluey.

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Warm Mushroom Salad with Bacon Vinaigrette

Credit: © Anna Williams
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Oyster mushrooms are the ideal mushroom for this salad. To roast them, mix the mushrooms with a delicious garlic oil and save leftover oil for other uses.

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Country Apple Galette

Credit: © Con Poulos
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Jacques Pépin loves to serve this delicate apple tart as a buffet dessert, since it's beautiful, easy to slice and simple to eat, pizza-style, while standing. The miraculously easy and versatile pastry dough comes together in a food processor in less than 20 seconds and can be filled with all sorts of fruits or vegetables. Because the tart is free-form, the pastry can be rolled into either a round or a rectangle.

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Braised Pine Nuts with Butternut Squash

Credit: © Antonis Achilleos
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In this risotto-like dish, the pressure cooker's intense heat penetrates the pine nuts' outer membranes and makes them soft inside.

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Skillet-Baked Pear-and-Apple Crisp

Credit: © David Prince
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Feel free to swap out the Cognac here for bourbon in this cinnamon-spiced crisp.

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Sherried Mushrooms with Fried Eggs on Toast

Credit: © Tina Rupp
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Cindy Pawlcyn sautés mushrooms and onions with the Spanish dry sherry Oloroso and then tops with a perfectly fried egg.

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Butternut-Squash-and-Sage Wontons

Credit: © Tina Rupp
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"Wonton wrappers are terrific for making ravioli when you don't have time to make homemade pasta. The wontons here, filled with mashed butternut squash and roasted garlic, get nicely crispy when sautéed in a touch of oil, but they're also delicious simply steamed.

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Bacon, Fennel and Apple Chutney

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Chutney is a favorite British condiment for everything from cheese to roasts. This sweet-and-smoky version is perfect with crackers as a starter, spread on a grilled cheddar sandwich or served with roasted pork.

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Creamy Semolina with Roasted Mushrooms

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It takes about only three minutes to make this thick, creamy semolina on the stove; the mushrooms cook in the oven, unattended, for 25 minutes.

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Roasted Butternut Squash with Sage

Credit: © Fredrika Stjärne
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Simple and full of fall flavors, this butternut squash recipe is an easy holiday dinner side.

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Apple Tart with Almond Cream

Credit: © Lisa Linder
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This delicious dessert is a large version of individual tartlets. The thin, crisp pastry shell is filled with a layer of almond cream made from both finely ground and coarsely chopped nuts that give the tart layers of texture. The thinly sliced apples on top caramelize as the tart bakes.

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Maple-Apple Upside-Down Cake

Credit: © Con Poulos
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This is one of the best upside-down cakes ever—the maple syrup infuses both the apples and the cake, making the dessert taste like a stack of apple pancakes.

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Chicken, Wild Mushroom and Roasted-Garlic Sauté

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Marcia Kiesel, a self-described mushroom freak, uses porcini to make her delicious, earthy chicken thigh sauté with roasted garlic cloves. She finishes the dish with a sprinkle of chopped tarragon, which adds a light, herbal sweetness.

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Andouille-and-Sweet Potato Pie with Tangy Apple Salad

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Sweet and salty combine with andouille sausage and sweet potato in this easy-to-construct pie.

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Stuffed Pork Tenderloins with Bacon and Apple-Riesling Sauce

Credit: Kirsten Strecker
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Chef Debra Whiting loves fresh goat cheese from a local New York dairy so much that she always works it into her dinner menu. Here, she mixes the cheese with apple, sausage and greens, then stuffs it inside a bacon-wrapped pork tenderloin. To balance the richness of the cheese, look for a wine with good acidity, like a dry or semi-dry New York Riesling.

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Apple Crisp with Dried Cranberries

Credit: © Fredrika Stjärne
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For this dessert, chef Lee Woolver recommends a tart apple, like the Northern Spy variety that grows all over upstate New York. To make the recipe more decadent, he often adds chocolate chips.

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Granny Smith Apple and Brown Butter Custard Tart

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Kate Neumann often showcases rich, nutty, fragrant browned butter in her desserts. Here, she adds it to a sweet custard loaded with caramelized apples and baked in a buttery tart shell.

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Polenta Gratin with Spinach and Wild Mushrooms

Credit: © Tina Rupp
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Commercial wild mushroom mixes (usually a combination of shiitake, cremini and oyster mushrooms) are a godsend: Some invisible helper has already cleaned, stemmed and sliced the mushrooms for you. In this recipe, they are mixed with spinach and cream, then baked in a luscious gratin under smooth rounds of precooked polenta until bubbling hot.

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Butternut Squash Turnovers

Credit: © Lucy Schaeffer
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These buttery squash turnovers make a perfect fall lunch alongside a big green salad.

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Pork and Wild Mushroom Daube

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The Provençal stews called daubes are cooked in wide-bellied, narrow-necked earthenware pots (daubières). The lids are specifically designed to trap moisture during cooking. Dutch ovens or bean pots are perfect stand-ins for a daubière.

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Apple Dumplings

Credit: Food & Wine
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Apples baked in flaky pastry with cinnamon sugar are irresistible, especially when served with vanilla ice cream. To save preparation time, we use frozen puff-pastry sheets.

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Roast Chicken with Butternut Squash

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You can also use acorn or Hubbard squash in this easy recipe, or try pumpkin.

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