We're using rich and flavorful maple syrup in everything from breakfast quinoa to filled doughnuts and vegetable stir-fry this season. Infuse apples for an upside-down cake, riff on an Old Fashioned co*cktail, or candy sweet potatoes in between two baking projects with these autumnal maple recipes.
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Overnight French Toast with Cranberries and Pecans
This stunning overnight French toast is the move for an effortless make-ahead brunch. Orange zest and tart, juicy cranberries add brightness to the dish, while chopped pecans lend a nutty crunch. When you serve it, be sure to scoop up the buttery maple syrup sauce on the bottom, which provides a rich finish.
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Spinach Salad with Warm Maple Dressing
This wintry salad combines blueberries, sliced apples, and feta with a warm, spiced maple syrup and balsamic dressing.
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Owamni Sweet Potatoes with Maple-Chile Crisp
Maple sugar lends complex sweetness to chef Sean Sherman's mouthwatering chile crisp, which he drizzles over roasted sweet potatoes.
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Grilled Chicken Thighs with Maple-Mustard Marinade
Chef Brendan Collins inspired this simple sauce: a not-too-sweet maple and mustard concoction with a pinch of ground allspice. It does double duty as a dressing for salad and a marinade for chicken thighs.
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Air Fryer Pork Chops with Maple-Soy Glaze
Brushing these pork chops with a maple syrup-soy sauce mixture before cooking them in the air fryer results in some delicious charring around the edges. Serve the pork chops over a bed of creamy polenta or mashed potatoes and top with extra glaze and pickled red onions.
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Lemon-Maple Halvah with Pistachio and Apricot
Cookbook author Adeena Sussman’s homemade halvah, a meltingly sweet and crumbly confection with Middle Eastern roots, is sweetened with maple syrup for complexity and notes of rich caramel. It's packed with nutty tahini, dried apricots, and fruity sumac.
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Maple-Bourbon Smash
Robb Turner, owner of Crown Maple, uses his richly flavored dark amber syrup to make this riff on an Old-Fashioned co*cktail.
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Maple-Bacon Popovers
Airy and eggy, with salty and crunchy bites from bacon, Gail Simmons' popovers reflect her Canadian influence with maple syrup in the batter and brushed on top.
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Coal-Roasted Sweet Potatoes With Maple-Chile Butter
Lightly smoked and deeply roasted sweet potatoes get a nice balance of salty, sweet, and heat from a whipped compound butter made of sherry vinegar, parsley, and maple syrup.
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Brandy Pecan Pie
A blend of turbinado sugar, maple syrup, and honey makes for a pecan pie with a well-rounded sweetness.
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Sourdough Pancakes with Maple-Molasses Strawberries
Inspired by the fluffy pancakes topped with oat streusel and fruit at Little Goat Diner in Chicago, we use molasses-steeped strawberries, making a breakfast that's balanced with sour, sweet, and bitter flavors.
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Strawberry Icebox Cake with Maple-Ginger Cream
This layered, creamy strawberry cake has sweet maple syrup in the filling and a topping of strawberries macerated in maple syrup.
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Maple-Meringue Doughnuts
The secret to doughnuts at home is in the dough: Retarding the shaped doughnuts allows a more complex, yeasty flavor to develop. The meringue filling is marshmallowy in texture; use an intense, robust, high-quality maple syrup to ensure lots of maple flavor.
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Sweet Breakfast Quinoa
"This breakfast will make your day so productive," says cookbook author Jill Donenfeld about her maple syrup-sweetened quinoa. The dish is studded with toasted almonds and orange-scented dried apricots and served with a topping of fresh ricotta cheese.
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Maple-Apple Upside-Down Cake
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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Slow-Roasted Salmon with Tamarind, Ginger, and Chipotle
The late chef and restaurateur Floyd Cardoz shared his secrets to slow-roasting salmon. Here, he flavors the fish with spicy ginger, sweet maple syrup, tangy tamarind, and smoky chipotles.
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Maple-Bacon Chicken Wings
A decadent maple-bacon glaze takes classic chicken wings to the next level.
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Twice-Baked Sweet Potatoes with Toasted Marshmallows
In this clever version of candied sweet potatoes with marshmallows, the sweet potatoes are mashed with deeply flavorful grade B maple syrup and butter before they're stuffed back into their skins and baked a second time.
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Roasted Kabocha with Maple Syrup and Ginger
Cookbook author Melissa Clark likes giving slices of roasted winter squash a little wake-up, so she roasts them with maple syrup, olive oil, fresh ginger, and thyme.
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Pecan-Maple Sticky Rolls
We have two shortcuts for these incredible faux sticky buns: using a biscuit dough instead of a yeast dough, and baking it with maple syrup instead of homemade caramel.
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Maple-Glazed Chicken Breasts with Mustard Jus
For this at-home version of chef David Slater's restaurant dish, chicken breasts are glazed with maple syrup and sherry vinegar, then finished with a mustard sauce and sprinkle of fresh breadcrumbs. Serve atop a bed of braised kale and chopped bacon for an extra lovely plate.
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Maple-Bourbon Banana Pudding Cake
While this delicious, simple cake bakes, a sweet, rich sauce forms at the bottom of the dish. Serve the cake warm with the sauce spooned over the top and a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
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Herb-Roasted Turkey with Maple Gravy
Growing up on the East Coast, chef Lee Hefter watched maple syrup being tapped in the fall. He thinks adding maple syrup to gravy makes it go better with all the traditional Thanksgiving side dishes.
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Sausage-and-Maple Bread Pudding
Jeni Britton's fantastic breakfast bread pudding is a fun, all-in-one take on French toast with maple syrup and sausage. Melted ice cream enriches the “custard” base.
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Skillet Apple Charlotte
A classic apple charlotte has a crust of buttered bread slices filled with caramelized apples. In this quick version from chef Jacques Pépin, apple wedges are sautéed with honey and maple syrup, topped with buttered toast, and turned out of the pan like a tarte Tatin.
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Maple-Roasted Brussels Sprouts
This unbelievably simple side dish counters the slight bitterness of brussels sprouts with a sweet maple syrup pan sauce. Chopped chestnuts add a nice crunch to the tender brussels spouts. It's a no-fuss, 30-minute recipe that can easily be added to any weeknight meal.
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Crispy Whole Wheat-Maple Crackers
In this recipe from F&W Culinary Director at Large Justin Chapple, sheets of pastry are made with maple syrup and sprinkled with maple sugar, then broken into shards.
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Maple Root Vegetable Stir-Fry with Sesame
In Korea, cooks typically create stir-fries with just one kind of vegetable — lotus root, say, or potatoes. Chef David Chang decided to break with tradition and stir-fry an assortment of vegetables, including Jerusalem artichokes and parsnips. Also unconventional is the maple syrup he adds to the dish; there are maple trees all around South Korea but not much maple syrup.
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Sweet and Savory Pumpkin Soup with Maple Sugar
Maple sugar gives this pumpkin soup a hearty sweetness that's perfect for the season. If you can't find maple sugar, you can substitute regular maple syrup.
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Maple-Ginger Roasted Vegetables with Pecans
When roasting winter vegetables, be sure to chop them about the same size, so they cook at the same rate. Toss them at least once while they're in the oven so they brown evenly.
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Maple-Buttermilk Pudding Cake
This sweet and gooey pudding cake with crisp candied edges is a Maine favorite borrowed from neighboring Quebec. The lavish use of maple syrup — a Maine staple — probably helped make it popular.
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Baked Beans with Maple-Glazed Bacon
For a zippy version of a New England classic, chef Laurence Jossel bakes buttery Rancho Gordo yellow eye beans in a tangy-hot mixture of apple cider vinegar, molasses, brown sugar, and crushed red pepper. Regular Italian cannellini or Great Northern beans can replace the yellow eyes.
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Maple-Baked Sweet Potatoes
Parboiling the sweet potatoes shortens the baking time and keeps them moist. Once tender, they can be broiled briefly to achieve a browned top.
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