Spice Up Your Fall Without The Pumpkin

Bacon Maple Cronut on a white plate

Everyone knows that fall is the time of year when people bake. Whether sweets, main dishes, or even soups and salads, they often use pumpkin. This year, you can impress your family and friends with homemade foods that don’t contain pumpkins. Here are some excellent options.

Apples

The fall is a great time to visit an apple orchard. There, you’ll find the freshest fruit and the widest variety. Instead of pumpkin, consider making delicious apple bread, apple pie, oatmeal apple bars, or apple stuffing. Another thing you can make with apples this fall is pork tacos topped with apple salsa. Of course, don’t forget candy apples and apple cider.

Cinnamon

Yes, pumpkin and cinnamon go hand in hand. However, cinnamon works great to enhance the flavor of dishes made with different ingredients. For instance, you can make homemade applesauce and spice it up with cinnamon. This spice is also great in apple crips pies, hot tea, apple or zucchini bread, and even pancakes and waffles.

Maple

This is a fantastic way to dress up desserts and main dishes. For breakfast, you can use real maple syrup on pancakes, waffles, and cinnamon rolls. It’s also delicious when added to lattes. For cookies, pies, sweet bread, and cakes, maple creates a satisfying flavor. You can use this ingredient for meats, too. For example, it makes a perfect glaze for salmon. Maple is also ideal for various chicken recipes. One popular dish is maple and chipotle deep-fried chicken wings.

Salted Caramel

It’s hard to beat the sweet and salty taste of this ingredient. You can add it to lattes or use it as a topping on ice cream. You can find limitless recipes online for salted caramel sauce. Use it to enhance the flavor of chicken, fish, or desserts like pudding and custard. Even if you have a picky eater in the house, you can get them hooked on a dish made with salted caramel.

Chai

You might think that chai is only a hot beverage. While that’s one way to enjoy it this fall, there are many others. What makes this particular ingredient so great for the fall is that it tastes a lot like pumpkin. For that reason, it’s perfect for different types of sweet bread and pies. However, you can also use chai to give your tea more flavor or make homemade chai cheesecake.

Sage

This, too, is an amazing ingredient for fall recipes. As a popular herb, sage makes pork, chicken, and beef bolder taste. This herb is also great in butternut squash soup. If you love pasta, why not make a butter sauce enhanced with sage?

Pears

Pears, especially Bosc pears, make a lot of fall dishes taste better. Instead of pumpkin, consider using them for your desserts. A few options include pear and almond cake or baked brie topped with caramelized pears. Poached pears seasoned with a little cinnamon is another amazing dish.

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Brown Sugar

A lot of pumpkin desserts include brown sugar. However, you can use this ingredient without the pumpkin and still make incredible food. For homemade cookies, sweet bread, and cakes, make brown sugar icing. Not only that, but this ingredient also enhances the flavor of fish and vegetables,

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