40 Warm and Cozy Fall Dinner Recipes
Updated: Sep. 24, 2023Perfect for cool nights, our fall dinner ideas are the ultimate stick-to-your-ribs comfort food. These soups, stews, braises and bakes will help you make the most out of autumn.
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Slow Cooker Pot Roast
This melt-in-your-mouth pot roast is the sort of dinner you dream about coming home to all day. Start this recipe in the slow cooker before you head out to work in the morning and it will braise away to fall-apart tenderness as you go about your day. Then make a pot of egg noodles, or whip up a quick potato recipe, and dinner is served.
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Classic French Onion Soup
Nothing says fall like a warm, savory, extra-cheesy bowl of French onion soup. Though yellow onions are commonly used in this recipe, you can also make it with other types of onions, like Vidalias, Walla Wallas or Mauis.For more ideas, check out these cozy fall soup recipes.
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Pepper-Stuffed Pork Tenderloin
In this dish, the delicate taste of pork is balanced with a lightly spicy stuffing featuring red bell peppers and a touch of cayenne. For an extra layer of flavor, brush the tenderloin with a mustard barbecue sauce during the last 5 minutes of cooking, and serve extra sauce on the side.
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Creamy Turkey Tetrazzini
This classic casserole is an excellent way to use up leftover turkey—but if you don’t have leftovers, no need to worry! You can also use rotisserie chicken or pick up some thickly-sliced turkey breast from your supermarket’s deli department.
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Pumpkin Bisque with Smoked Gouda
Your house will start to smell like autumn as this rich, cheesy soup bubbles on the stove. The Gouda cheese adds a delightful smokiness that makes this pumpkin soup taste nice and cozy for sweater weather.
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My Brazilian Feijoada
A stick-to-your-ribs supper by way of Brazil, feijoada is stew made with chunks of pork shoulder and beef short ribs, simmered in the slow cooker until the meat is fall-apart tender. Serve this with a basket full of pão de queijo, a Brazilian cheese bread made with tapioca flour.
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Slow-Simmered Burgundy Beef Stew
This hearty beef and Burgundy wine stew is a staple dish at every French bistro. It’s so simple to make, this recipe should be a staple dish at your house, too! When choosing a wine to cook with, buy something that won’t break the bank but is still good enough to drink. Start with our picks for the best boxed wines.
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Meatball Submarine Casserole
Saucy meatball subs are just as delicious (and a lot less messy!) when baked into a hearty casserole. This recipe uses frozen meatballs as a time saver, but you can also make these quick and simple meatballs if you’d prefer something more homemade.For more ideas, check out these comforting fall casserole recipes.
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Spicy Touchdown Chili
When the leaves start changing, it’s football season! Whether you’re cheering on the local team on a Friday night or spending Sunday in front of the TV, this beef, sausage, bacon and bean chili is sure to make you lots of friends on game day.
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Quick Golden Squash Soup
This delectable soup will make your whole house smell like fall, and it takes only about 30 minutes to get it on the table. It can be difficult to cut up a winter squash, so if time is an issue—or if you’re not confident in your knife skills—paying a little extra for precut butternut squash is worth it.
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Italian Hot Dish
This easy baked pasta dish tastes like a glorious mash-up of baked ziti and Philly cheesesteaks. It’s also easy to adjust the recipe to accommodate your personal tastes or picky eaters. Not much for mushrooms or green peppers? Swap them out for other vegetables you like (try eggplant). Mix up the meat with some crumbled Italian sausage, or use ground chicken or turkey instead.
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Apple Cider Pork Chops
These pork chops are a must for fall dinners, no matter the size of the crowd! The recipe is easy to double when company pops in. Try serving the pork chops with mashed potatoes or buttered egg noodles to soak up more of that delicious sauce.
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Spinach & Turkey Turnovers
This is another fall dinner idea to make with the leftovers from a roast turkey. If you don’t have the patience to wait for leftovers, you can substitute rotisserie chicken for turkey or follow this easy, hands-off recipe for slow-cooker turkey breast instead.
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Stuffed Pepper Soup
There’s no doubt that stuffed pepper recipes are amazing but they can take more time than you have to spare on a busy weeknight. This easy soup recipe, which is a one-pot wonder, fixes that problem—bringing you all the flavors you’re craving with fewer dishes to wash.
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Caribbean Curried Chicken
If you can’t find a bottled version of the mojo criollo marinade this chicken recipe calls for (it’s a Cuban marinade made with garlic, sour orange juice and cumin), use our guide to making marinades to help you come up with your own special recipe.
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BBQ Chicken and Apple Bread Pudding
Bread pudding is the epitome of comfort food and is simply too good to reserve only for dessert. This sweet and savory twist on the classic—featuring boxed cornbread mix, chopped barbecue chicken, tart green apples and gooey Monterey Jack cheese—is a delicious way to enjoy an old favorite.
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Carrot Soup with Orange & Tarragon
A pretty orange color, a delicious hint of citrus and a garden-fresh flavor make this soup feel like something truly special, yet still simple enough to enjoy any night of the week. Try sprinkling individual bowls with fresh tarragon before serving.
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Sausage-Stuffed Acorn Squash
Acorn squash gets the sweet-and-savory treatment when it’s stuffed with sausage, onion, spinach and cranberries. Cooking the squash in the microwave makes this pretty fall dinner quick enough to make on a busy weeknight.
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Moroccan Braised Beef
Curry powder is a blend of up to 20 spices, herbs and seeds. Add a pinch of curry to your favorite soups, stews, salads and even rice for an exotic flavor. In this Moroccan stew, begin with 2 teaspoons of curry, then add more to your taste.
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Crunchy Almond Turkey Casserole
This comforting cream of mushroom soup-based turkey and rice casserole gets a surprising crunch from the addition of almonds and water chestnuts. Serve this hearty dish alongside a simple, seasonal salad.
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Saucy Italian Roast
This easy slow-cooker dinner relies on a few store-bought shortcuts to make setting-and-forgetting even easier, including using canned mushrooms and spaghetti sauce. Use this simple hack to make store-bought pasta sauce taste homemade!
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Beef Roast Dinner
Because this healthy dish is slow-cooked, you can use less expensive roasts with results as mouthwatering as the more costly cuts. Change up the veggies for variety, nutrition or to suit your tastes! For starters, swap out some of the potatoes for sweet potatoes, or another root vegetable like celeriac.
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Firehouse Chili
This recipe was written by a real firehouse chef that used to prepare meals for 10 men, so if you’re looking for a recipe that will keep a crowd good and full, this authentic firehouse chili may very well be the one!
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Blue Cheese-Mushroom Stuffed Tenderloin
This recipe is a great choice for a special occasion—or any night when you find yourself in the mood to be fancy. Filled with a savory stuffing, the sliced tenderloin looks and tastes like a specialty dish from an upscale restaurant.
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Stuffing Crust Turkey Potpie
For a faster, more flavor-packed way to get potpie to the table, skip the standard rolled double pie crust and follow this recipe instead. Boxed stuffing mix and broth make a press-in crust that’s easy as, well, potpie!
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Stout & Honey Beef Roast
Here’s a heartwarming slow cooker meal that’s ideal for chilly days and hectic nights. Honey, beer and seasonings make the sauce different and oh so good. If you have leftover stout after making this roast, use it in one of these recipes to make with Guinness, which will work with any brand of stout beer.
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Braised Herb Pork Chops
These herb-packed braised pork chops are great for entertaining; the recipe comes together quickly and then spends 2 hours in the oven, giving you plenty of time to relax with your guests.
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Sweet Potato & Caramelized Onion Shells
Gorgonzola cheese and sweet potatoes add a fun and flavorful twist to classic stuffed shells. If you don’t like blue cheese, use Gouda or Swiss instead of Gorgonzola. To save time, you can use canned pumpkin in place of the mashed sweet potatoes.
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Best Ever Mac & Cheese
This mac and cheese has a sauce loaded with three different cheeses that bubble and ooze as it bakes in the oven. A crispy, buttery bread crumb topping provides textural contrast; for a more flavorful “oomph,” replace the bread crumbs with crushed pork rinds, crushed potato chips or Ritz crackers.
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Land of Enchantment Posole
This posole recipe gets its name from New Mexico‘s whimsical state nickname, “The Land of Enchantment.” You’ll find this Dutch oven dinner as enchanting as the state; this spicy stew of pork shoulder, hominy, jalapenos and smoky Southwestern spices is bound to become a new family favorite.
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Pumpkin Harvest Beef Stew
Comfort food manages to get even more comforting in this pumpkin-spiced riff on hearty beef stew. This recipe is written for a slow cooker, but if you’d prefer your stew to spend the day simmering on the stove and filling your house with aromas, make this recipe in a Dutch oven instead.
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Turkey Sausage-Stuffed Acorn Squash
This couldn’t-be-simpler dinner is so stunning, it makes any night of the week feel like something special. Each stuffed acorn squash is a full meal in itself, so side dishes aren’t really necessary. If you’d like to put something else on the table, it’s hard to go wrong with garlic bread.
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Hominy Beef Chili
Hunker down for the night and get cozy with this filling chili. Loaded with beef chuck roast and convenient staples, such as diced tomatoes, green chilies and seasonings, it’s a satisfying supper that would be yummy served with a side of warm homemade tortillas or tortilla chips for dipping.
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Spicy Pork & Green Chili Verde
By using quick-cooking pork tenderloin instead of a braising cut like pork shoulder, this pork chili is ready to eat in less than an hour. Brimming with poblano and sweet red peppers for a hearty kick, serve this chili with some cooling sour cream, Monterey Jack cheese and tortilla chips.
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North African Chicken and Rice
Moroccan food is heavily spiced with a mixture of interesting ingredients and exciting flavor combinations that may be new to you. This simple slow-cooker chicken dish mixes bold spices like cinnamon, chili powder and turmeric with salty olives and tart lemons.
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Porcini Mac & Cheese
The secret ingredient to this luscious mushroom mac and cheese is beer; specifically, a seasonally-brewed pumpkin beer, which adds a special touch of fall flavor. As delicious as fontina is, this mac and cheese recipe would work just as well with Gouda, Gruyere or Colby cheese.
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Mom’s White Lasagna
Instead of the classic lasagna combo of pasta, cheese and marinara sauce, this white lasagna layers its pasta with sausage, a velvety wine-based cream sauce, and four types of cheese: cheddar, cottage cheese, Gouda and cream cheese. Serve alongside something acidic that can cut through all the cream, like a simple, vinegary Italian salad.
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Apple-Roasted Pork with Cherry Balsamic Glaze
Turn an ordinary pork loin into an impressive dinner party-worthy dish by adding roasted apples, caramelized onions, bright balsamic vinegar and whole pitted cherries. If you have fresh cherries, then by all means use them, but flash frozen cherries work just as well!
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Baked Pumpkin Goat Cheese Alfredo with Bacon
In this recipe, curly cellentani pasta gets tossed with a quick and easy pumpkin cream sauce that’s been mixed with creamy goat cheese, then baked with a topping of additional cheese and crispy bacon. Could this be the most craveable fall pasta dish ever? Possibly.
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Turkey Curry with Rice
If you’ve got lots of leftover turkey but are tired of Thanksgiving-inspired riffs on leftovers, try this easy curry recipe with carrots, cauliflower, creamy coconut milk and mango chutney. Serve this on top of a big bowl of rice or with a side of homemade naan bread.After these dinner recipes, you’ll want to enjoy a fall dessert with any of these fall baking recipes.
Originally Published: January 16, 2019
