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Everyone knows apples are fantastic in pies, crisps, fritters, tarts, and robes of caramel, but the classic fruit is just as good in savory dishes too. These savory apple recipes prove that easily, and you’ll want to eat them all fall.
Was There a Granny Smith?How Did the Most Popular Apples Get Their Names?Emblematic of autumn, apples start coming into season in mid-September, and although they’ve become a year-round fruit for most of us, they are best around this time of summer changing into fall (and through the winter). Many grocery stores now stock several varieties of apples, even beyond the familiar Gala, Red Delicious, Fuji, Granny Smith, et al, but you’re likely to find even more interesting specimens at farmer’s markets. There are over 2,500 types of apples grown in the US alone, and there’s been great interest in bringing back heirloom apple varieties from the early days of our culinary history.
When using apples in savory dishes, you can either cook them to varying degrees of softness so they meld more into the other ingredients, or leave them raw to provide a sweet, tangy, crunchy counterpoint (as in gremolata or slaw). You can slip raw apple slices onto sandwiches in lieu of lettuce, or mix them into salad (don’t forget chicken salad, and even tuna), and toss chopped apples in with whatever root vegetables you’re roasting. They add a lovely sweet spark, not to mention extra nutrition, to all sorts of meals. Working them into your repertoire is easy, too.
1. Choose the right apple for the dish. Flavor is important, of course—apples range from super tart Granny Smiths to honey-sweet Braeburns and Ambrosias—but if you’re cooking your apples, it’s important to consider their texture too. If you want firmer, more discernible chunks in a cooked dish, be sure to choose a variety that holds up well, like Cortlands and Galas. If you’re indecisive, you can always use a mix of apples to get several different dimensions of the fruit in your finished dish.
Related Reading: The Best Apples for Baking
2. When you’re ready to use them, clean them well. Conventional apples are perennially part of the so-called Dirty Dozen, or produce with high pesticide levels, so run them under water (while rubbing the surface of the fruit) for at least 30 seconds. If it makes you feel better, you can use a vinegar and baking soda solution or commercial wash, but water and mechanical action should do it. If your apples are coated in wax, rethink your life choices, while also scrubbing that film off with a brush. Naturally, organic apples are your best bet, but you should still clean them to be safe (because who knows how many hands have touched them).
3. It’s not necessary to peel your apples. You will want to remove the seeds and tough inner core, but this has nothing to do with poisonous compounds, and everything to do with the fact that these parts are just not very palatable. (However, you can also save your scraps and cook with apple cores.)
Related Reading: Are Apple Seeds Actually Poisonous?
4. Cut your apples on the chunkier side if they’ll be cooked. Otherwise, they might disappear. Even hardier varieties will collapse somewhat after long enough in the oven or sauté pan.
5. Store any leftover apples in a cool, dry place. Do that, and they’ll last a remarkably long time—so you can easily set yourself up for quick, healthy snacks and more apple-jacked meals whenever it strikes your fancy.
Put away your pie plate for just a little while, and try one of these savory apple recipes to welcome fall.
Pork chops go Gallic in this homey dish that’s particularly perfect for fall. Sautéed apples join bacon, white wine, cream, and mustard for a sensational sauce. If you don’t eat pork but do eat chicken, try the French classic Poulet Vallée d’Auge, with very similar flavors. And to up the apple ante, you can use Calvados apple brandy in place of the Cognac or Armagnac in this recipe. Get the Pork Chops with Apples and Mustard Sauce recipe.
Related Reading: The 9 Best Skillets of 2019
Sweet, juicy, and crunchy apples meet earthy beets, bitter radicchio, and creamy blue cheese in this cold-weather salad. There’s also apple cider vinegar in the dressing. Get our Tangy Apple and Beet Salad recipe. (Or if you prefer greens, try our Kale Apple Salad with Poppyseed Dressing.)
A warm red cabbage slaw with bacon and browned kielbasa is full of savor, with sweet-tangy sparks from sliced apples and apple cider vinegar in the dressing. Finely sliced bell pepper, onion, and carrots add even more flavor and natural sweetness to the hearty dish. Get our Kielbasa with Warm Apple-Bacon Slaw recipe.
This may sound odd, but the combo of sweet apples, savory eggs, smoky bacon, and pungent blue cheese is eye-openingly delicious. This also tastes great with cheddar if you’re not a fan of blue cheese’s funk. Get our Bacon, Apple, and Blue Cheese Omelet recipe.
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Sauerkraut and apples beautifully demonstrate the “opposites attract” theory: the one’s sweet complements the other’s sour, and vice versa. This dish adds kielbasa for heartiness, but you can substitute your favorite sausage, like chicken-apple, or even go meatless. And if you want to dress it up, this Sauerkraut Sausage Casserole recipe combines the same flavors with sliced potatoes shingling the top; you could totally overlap sliced apples instead. Get the Sauerkraut and Sausages with Apples recipe.
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Sheet pan dinners are wonderful in every way—chop up your ingredients (here, chicken thighs, apples, and vegetables), toss everything with your seasoning (classic lemon, garlic, and thyme in this case), and pop it in the oven to roast until crispy, juicy, and caramelized. We’re also eyeing this rosemary-balsamic sheet pan chicken with apples and bacon, but you can customize to your heart’s content. Foil-lined pans make clean up easy too. Serve with simple mashed potatoes or wild rice on the side. Get the Sheet Pan Chicken with Roasted Vegetables and Apples recipe.
Related Reading: What’s the Difference Between Sheet Pans and Cookie Sheets? | How to Make Dingy Baking Sheets Look Brand New
You may have put apples in your stuffing, but have you ever stuffed the apples themselves? Clearly, whether you try them on the grill, with a vegan walnut-herb stuffing, or with goat cheese and bacon, it’s a great idea. This version uses a pork and breadcrumb stuffing with sage and onions, and would obviously be great at Thanksgiving, but also makes a nice meal by itself, maybe with a salad on the side. It’s basically the autumn answer to the stuffed tomatoes of summer. Get the Baked Apples with Savory Pork Stuffing recipe.
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Apples and cheese get along famously, so it’s no wonder you can find tons of grilled cheese recipes containing the fruit (like a version with caramelized onions and tart green apples, one with brie and roasted chicken in addition to the apples, or an apple, ham, and cheddar melt), but this open-faced version lets you really appreciate the beauty of the pairing. Gooey, nutty smoked gouda pairs perfectly with the sweet apples and honey, and the hit of extra salt makes everything more piquant. Leave off the bacon if you must, but don’t skip the fresh thyme if you can help it. Get the Salted Honey and Apple Gouda Toast recipe.
Related Reading: 11 Reasons to Always Have Honey in Your Pantry
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This Persian dish has everything you love about beef stew in general (mainly, tender hunks of meat and thick, savory sauce), but dried apricots and fresh apples take the place of carrots and potatoes—which the French happen to call pommes de terre, or apples from the earth, in case that makes you feel any less hesitant about adding fruit to stew. Make sure you use apples that retain their shape during cooking, and cut them into large chunks so they don’t disintegrate. Turmeric, cinnamon, rose petals, cardamom, nutmeg, and cloves lend a gorgeous warm fragrance to this delicious dish. Get the Persian Apple Stew recipe. (Or try the lamb and apple variation linked to via the Instagram post above.)
Fish with apples isn’t something you see too often, but it makes perfect sense. A pan sauce of apple cider and bourbon is a great contrast to meaty salmon, and would be good served with a simple warm apple slaw (just skip the kielbasa—and the bacon, if you wish). This is how pescatarians do fall. Get the Roasted Salmon with Apple Cider Glaze recipe.
For a cold soup you can enjoy before summer’s over, try this intriguing ajo blanco that adds apples to the classic almond and garlic formula, but when the nights get chillier, tuck into this curried cauliflower and apple soup from Daniel Boulud. The chef suggests adding shrimp to make it more of a meal, but we also like the idea of toasting slices of our Apple and Cheddar Quick Bread and serving them on the side. Get the Curried Cream of Cauliflower and Apple Soup recipe.
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And now for something completely different: apple curry! This vegan Sri Lankan dish lets the apples shine, and perks them up with mustard seeds, bay leaves, jalapeños or serranos, dried chiles, curry powder, and garlic. It’s really spicy, but brown sugar and coconut milk smooth out a little of the spikiness, and using apple juice or apple cider in place of water is inspired. You’ll actually be better off using slightly unripe apples here, and can choose to leave in some of the core to help the apple pieces hold together. Get the Sri Lankan Spicy Green Apple Curry recipe.
Apples are great on-the-go food and we’ve all grabbed one for breakfast at some point, but if you’ve got more time in the morning, try making these grilled breakfast sandwiches with maple-glazed breakfast sausage patties (the apple slices get the same treatment). Sharp cheddar cheese caps it off, and toasty English muffins hold it all together. Honestly, these are great for lunch or dinner too, or even a midnight snack if you need one. Get our Apple and Cheddar Breakfast-Sausage Sandwich recipe. (And try our Pork and Apple Burger recipe too.)
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Apples on pizza may be old hat by now, but that doesn’t make the phenomenon any less tasty. Add bacon and blue cheese and you have a flawless flavor combo, but this version also adds roasted garlic and coats the apples in maple syrup for something extra special. Bringing caramelized onions to the mix would amp up the sweet, savory, melty goodness even further, but maybe that would push it over the top? The only way to know is to try it! Get the Maple Apple, Bacon, and Blue Cheese Pizza recipe.
It should come as no surprise that Dorie Greenspan—acclaimed cookbook author (of beloved imprints like “Everyday Dorie” and “Dorie’s Cookies,” to name a few) and baking fiend—is at her most comfortable in her kitchen.
“Sometimes people will say: ‘Oh, you have three houses,’” Dorie tells us in the debut episode of Chowhound’s Open Kitchen video series. “And I think: I have three kitchens. Everywhere I am, the kitchen is the most important place for me.”
Although Dorie splits her time among her three kitchens in New York City, Connecticut, and Paris, she admits that at least a part of every cookbook she’s worked on has been written (13 to date) in her Connecticut kitchen, her bona fide space for inspiration. Which makes sense: Her stainless steel desk straddles the edge of her kitchen, a jumping-off point for both her writing and her baking. Even when she’s not working on a book, she can often be found baking in this kitchen, whipping up rounds of butter sablés or wedges of lemon cake.
Related Reading: What Is the Difference Between Sheet Pans, Cookie Sheets, and Baking Pans?
But for Dorie, high-quality tools are equally as important as the ingredients she uses. “Do you know when you’re working, and you grab the right tool for the right job?” she says. “I sometimes just take a moment and think: This is really nice.” From the simple, oft-overlooked gadget to the innocuous utensil, these are a few of Dorie Greenspan’s favorite tools, straight out of her Connecticut kitchen.
Dorie owns a host of Mastrad’s non-stick silicone spatulas in a rainbow of colors and sizes. Their seamless, one-piece design and round, narrow handle means they stay clean, and are comfortable in your hand. Perfect for scraping bowls, stirring, and gently folding in ingredients.
One of Dorie’s kitchen cabinets is stacked with a tower of cooling racks, because she insists that you can’t have too many (three is the minimum, magic number). Each is used for a different product: round ones with wider grids are excellent for cakes; lengthy, rectangular racks with smaller grids are ideal for rows of cookies.
Dorie’s favorite rolling pin is a French Mafter Bourgeat pin. It lacks handles, it’s rounded at the edges, and it’s made out of nylon (which means it can go in the dishwasher). She goes to great lengths to protect her prized rolling pin, as you’ll soon find out in the video below.
There are plenty of alternative uses to muffin tins than simply the vessel for muffins and cupcakes, Dorie has discovered. She actually finds them exceptionally useful for baking her sablés. The bottoms of each tin prevent sablés from spreading—uniforming each cookie—while still giving each one height, a golden-brown color, and a gloriously sandy, crumbly texture.
Related Reading: 15 Muffin Pan Recipes That Aren’t Muffins
Unsurprisingly, Dorie’s kitchen is wonderfully welcoming. It’s neither stuffy nor ostentatious, neither over-the-top nor understated. Her kitchen resembles that of a home cook and baker, peppered with funky tchotchkes, enormous tins of flour and sugar, and a heaping of Dorie’s affable personality. To her, this kitchen is simply warm. “If this kitchen could talk,” she says, “it might say: I’m glad you’re here.”
Chowhound’s new series Open Kitchen brings viewers directly into our adored chefs’, bakers’, and friends’ kitchens, allowing them to introduce us to their space through a recipe and a story (or two). Check out the first episode, and then take a crack at her delicious sablés recipe below.
Embedded photos courtesy of Guillermo Riveros.
Why does summer get all the glory where beautiful vegetable dishes are concerned? Frankly, it’s spring and fall when all of the really showstopping crops come to fruition, and yet summer gets all the fun for being the season of salads. And why’s that? Because, bathing suit season? Because, lettuce? Really, lettuce?
Not this year. Just because the weather is getting cooler is no reason not to enjoy some of the brightest stars of the fall harvest in their most simple but glorious presentation: salads. Pair any of these fall harvest compositions with a nice soup if you crave the warmth. Or, better yet, red wine.
While it might be difficult to prove empirically, I believe fennel is the most underrated of vegetables. Crunchier than even celery, nearly as herbaceous as a bunch of basil, capable of participating as beautifully raw as caramelized, and providing its own dainty garnish, it is past time to get more fennel in your life. Begin with this briny, savory crunchfest, which is as much a meal as it is a conversation piece. Get the Fennel Jicama Salad with Lemon-Pink Peppercorn Dressing recipe.
Before you give in to the lure of sweatpants and relegate sweet potatoes to soups and marshmallow-topped casseroles, give it a little love somewhere that’s green. Here, roasted sweet potatoes and smoked paprika-spiced pecans take the place of bacon in a spinach salad that’s even served warm. Get our Warm Spinach Salad with Smoky Pecans and Sweet Potato recipe.
At once sweet and earthy, if you have never found a beet dish to convince you of its purple majesty, dig this—the beets here are in the sauce. Not beets with tzatziki; beets in tzatziki. Try pickling your own beets for an extra tangy, creamy dressing to apply to a host of other vegetables. Get the Roasted Beet Tzatziki Salad recipe.
Not all the stunners of fall have been incubating below the soil. Some beauties are literally low-hanging fruit, waiting for the precise autumnal chill in which to be plucked to achieve their gently poached destiny. Did I mention the poaching liquid includes red wine? You’ll know what to do with the rest of the bottle. Get our Poached Pear and Blue Cheese Salad recipe.
Brussels have become so ubiquitous, what with their appearances in everything from slaw to risotto, that we’ve forgotten they have a natural season: now. Here they make kale seem positively antiquated as a base for a Caesar. Get the Brussels Sprouts Caesar Salad recipe.
Sure, you can enjoy dried figs all year long, but now is the time to be seduced by plump, juicy, fresh figs. Their freshness is highlighted by a simple setting of peppery arugula and a sweet and tangy honey mustard dressing. Fall in the Garden of Eden is a glorious time, indeed. Get our Fig and Arugula Salad with Honey Mustard Dressing recipe.
Delicata squash is technically a summer squash, though it is traditionally treated as a winter squash, hence: autumn squash. If you have limited your squash intake solely to butternut, acorn, and spaghetti varieties, then you have limited yourself. Get on board with this lovely—and dare I say, delicate—salad with pepitas and ricotta salata. Get our Roasted Delicata Squash Salad recipe.
When I was a child I thought parsnips were merely haunted carrots. As an adult, I still feel that way, so what better vegetable to usher in Halloween season? And since bathing suit weather has kinda officially ended, I’m not one to turn away from recipes with more blue cheese. Get the Parsnip Salad with Grapes, Blue Cheese, and Spiced Pecans recipe.