When fall arrives in Minnesota, it’s time to break out your favorite warm and cozy recipes. Do you have slower cooker favorites passed down through generations? Or have you been accumulating your own soup recipes that you pull out as soon as you feel a cool September breeze? The cabin is closed. The Hilltop garden has given its last tomato and is now just sad, frost-bitten vines I keep meaning to pull. And somewhere around the first 50-degree morning, my brain quietly flips a switch: it’s soup season.
I say this every year and I mean it every year — fall is the best eating season we have in Minnesota. Summer is for grilling and standing over a garden with a colander and Salad Spinner. Winter is for survival. But fall? Fall is for putting something in the Crock-Pot at 9am and then not thinking about dinner again until you walk in the door and the whole house smells like you have your life together. You don’t. But it smells like you do.
I get asked constantly for “the fall list” — the recipes I actually make on repeat once the leaves turn, the ones that show up in my Crocktober rotation, the ones Kurt requests by name. So I went through the archive and pulled my 27 favorites. It’s soup-heavy, because that’s who I am as a person, but I snuck in a few sweets, a pie, and a cocktail because a girl needs balance.
Bookmark this one. You’re going to be back here every week until Memorial Day weekend when we officially welcome back Summer.
The Apples – It Is Fall After All!
The Soups and Stews (Because Obviously)
If you’ve been here before, you know soup is basically its own food group at my house from the first cool September breeze through the spring thaw. Here’s the rotation.
These Soups will hit the spot too!
- Butternut Squash Soup — Slow cooker, apples for a little tart sweetness, and about as quintessential fall as it gets.
- Ham + White Bean Soup — The kind of pantry-and-freezer soup that comes together from what you already have.
- Slow-Cooker Beef Stew — My original set-it-and-forget-it stew, and the one I could genuinely eat from the first 50-degree day until the snow melts.
- Pork and Tomatillo Stew — Inspired by The Art of Mexican Cooking, with tender spareribs and husk-on tomatillos. A little different, still quintessential fall.
- Chicken Chile Verde — Stovetop or Instant Pot, your call.
The Meaty Mains, Sides, and Sweets
Soup can’t be the whole meal every single night, even at my house.
More Fall favorites
- Instant Pot Chicken Pot Pie — The Instant Pot is basically the official kitchen gadget of fall, and this is why.
- Stuffed Pumpkin — Sinfully delightful, a genuine showstopper, and a favorite of my radio partner Stephanie March.
- Quiche Crust and Filling — My go-to for a fall or winter weekend brunch, endlessly customizable.
- Cheesy Bread Pudding — Braises, soups, noodle bakes — all the hearty fare that sticks to your ribs, and this one especially. Pair it with a green salad and green goddess dressing and call it dinner.
That’s the list — 27 recipes deep, plus 10 more for good measure. If you make one this month, let me know which. My money’s on the apple dumplings as thats one of my most requested recipes.
