7 Delightful Thanksgiving Pie Recipes Sure to Impress

Thanksgiving is a holiday centered completely around food and while the dinner might take the majority of the focus, if you are part of the Dessert First Crew, then you might know a little something about spending the entire meal counting down until it’s time for dessert. Being a member of the Dessert First Crew myself, I am of course speaking from experience here.

The fall holidays generally bring around many pies — a dessert that tends to get neglected the rest of the year unless you seek them out. I’ve found that pies are usually hit or miss with people, they either really like them or would just prefer to eat cake. Despite your own personal feelings, chances are they are people around you that are pie-lovers, so they are good to bake for holiday get-togethers. Here are 7 better-than–the-usual pie recipes to make for Thanksgiving.

Maple Pecan Pie {via taste of home}
Pecan pie is a standard pie for the holidays, but adding maple syrup takes it up a notch. Being allergic to tree nuts I’ve never had pecan pie, unfortunately, but it’s big favorite among the crowd that doesn’t suffer from such an allergy. This particular recipe could not be any easier because you are using store bought pie dough. Even if you generally make your own dough, it’s perfectly fine in this recipe because the pecan-maple filling is so rich, it’ll be the focus of the pie and the store-bought crust is just there to provide a good base.

Image Credit: andrew malone

Mini Pumpkin Pies {via oh sweet basil}
If you want to make some changes to your menu but don’t want to veer too far from tradition, turning pretty much anything little is a great way to change things up. Even if you don’t alter the original recipe at all aside from the size of the pan you cook in, turning something into bite size pieces really seems like a big change. Pumpkin pie is absolutely great for this — they look so adorable little! You could turn your own favorite pumpkin pie recipe into miniatures and just use this as a method, or you could follow this recipe exactly. I love this particular one because you are cooking the mini pies in muffin tins: no need for any extra equipment, and so simple to do.

Crême Brûlée Pie {via food52}
This recipe is new to me this year but when I first saw it I thought: how did none of us think of this before? Crême brûlée is such a popular custard and turning it into a pie is such a brilliant idea. We live in an era of food mashups and yet, this is the first I’m seeing of crême brûlée pie. Anyways— I’m just glad that this is in all of our lives now. If you are looking to impress your Thanksgiving guests, I’d try out this recipe because it looks so gorgeous with the brûléed sugar on top. This recipe uses a kitchen torch to get that done, but I don’t see why you couldn’t use your oven broiler. I would just put aluminum foil over the pie crust so the edges don’t burn and I would watch it VERY closely to prevent it from get super-burnt.

Spiced Pear Apple Pie {via food network kitchens}
I’m partial to a pear-apple pie. It might be my favorite kind of pie out there. Apples and pears are two of my favorite fruits and having them cooked together then sandwiched between flaky crust is pretty much my heaven. I even go heavy handed with the spices that are included here, using heaping portions of all 3. If you are feeling daring and are serving a crowd that might not mind a little break from tradition you could even pop some of the spices into the pie crust as well. Adding 1/4 or 1/2 of cinnamon and ground ginger to the pie crust really gives it a flavor that compliments the filling nicely.

Cranberry Cherry Cheesecake Pie {via pioneer sugar}
This pie is like heaven for not only a cheesecake fan, but a fan of crumb topping as well. Because not only does the pie have cheesecake, but it has a nice portion of crumb topping baked into it as well! Cranberries and cherries go very well together here and I don’t see why you couldn’t use frozen cherries in place of fresh ones if you can’t find fresh cherries where you are right now. The cheesecake portion of this is easy to prepare and the topping means you don’t have to worry if the cheesecake cracks while baking —the crumbs will cover it and nobody will know.

Image Credit: christy lane campbell

Chocolate Espresso Pudding Pie {via created by diane}
Chocolate might not be the first thing you think of when you think of Thanksgiving, but this pie might change that. This is a very intensely chocolate-y pie for very intense chocolate fans. Any time you add coffee or espresso to chocolate, it just intensifies the chocolate flavor even more, which is why it’s one of my personal favorite combinations on earth. Because the chocolate pudding in this pie is so rich, this is another time where a store-bought pie crust will absolutely get the job done. This way you can relax knowing the crust is taken care of and focus on making the perfect, most smooth pudding for the filling. Just remember to par-bake the pie crust because the pudding needs to go into an already baked crust so it can set.

Ice Cream Pie with Easy Caramel Sauce {via ree drummond}
Ice cream pies are fun and underrated as a dessert to serve, especially for kids. They are so unoffensive and really hard to mess up. You can look at this recipe as more of a method than a hard-fast recipe that you have to stick to. This pie is not holiday themed at all, but there’s no reason why you couldn’t turn it into one. Replace the vanilla ice cream with pumpkin or another seasonal ice cream. Use ginger cookies for the crust instead of graham crackers. And feel free to add whatever candy or nuts you have lying around to the ice cream. Don’t skip making the caramel sauce either! It makes the pie even more special than normal.

What’s your favorite pie to make for Thanksgiving?

Featured image is from dave herholz.