Thanksgiving is undoubtedly my favorite holiday. While I love every part of the Thanksgiving meal, one part that can’t be forgotten is the Thanksgiving dessert spread!

The morning is a mad rush in the kitchen with my family, whipping up all our favorite Thanksgiving food, from casseroles, side dishes, and turkey to desserts.
It’s hard to stray from the recipes we love on Thanksgiving but giving new ones a chance will give you a whole new repertoire for Thanksgiving and other fall and winter gatherings.
Below, I’ve compiled a list of Thanksgiving dessert recipes for you to try. Some are classics while others are modernized twists.
Pecan pie is always my first pick at the dessert table, but I can never get a piece out without it falling apart before reaching my plate.
These neat pecan pie bars hold their form and come in perfect squares.
I love getting equally proportioned bites of crust, caramelized custard, and pecans in every bite!
This perfectly moist Apple Cake recipe is laden with whole chunks of apple and apple sauce to provide a dense cake.
The addition of vanilla, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice accentuates the rich flavors of fall.
You can also take a creative license to top it with any glaze or icing you like. I usually go for a salted caramel drizzle.
Check out my favorite apples to bake with!
There’s nothing better than fresh donuts to start a leisurely morning, and this recipe for Apple Fritters is the height of fall decadence.
You don’t have to worry about letting the dough rise for these fritters.
The batter is similar to the apple cake recipe, using chunks of Granny Smith apples and apple sauce.
However, instead of baking the batter, you throw it into the frier.
Another efficient take on a classic, apple pie bars save you the mess and get equal parts crust and apple filling with every bite.
What I like about these bars is that it’s a cross between an apple crumble and an apple pie.
You get the buttery crust on the bottom, followed by the cinnamon apple filling, and finished with a crumble topping.
Salted caramel is the latest dessert craze and adding it to apples is a marriage made in heaven.
This beautiful apple pie has you create a latticed pastry top filled with homemade salted caramel.
If you’re up for a challenge, this salted caramel apple pie has you make everything from scratch, so make sure you're stocked on baking ingredients.
I’m glad they include a video for me to bake along with.
A true classic and always the first pie to get eaten up at my Thanksgiving gathering, pecan pies are the ultimate fan favorite.
You can never have too many pecan pies. Even if you have a tried-and-true recipe, trying something new is always refreshing!
This recipe stands out because it’s vegan-friendly, on top of being delicious.
One of the most anticipated flavors of the fall season is pumpkin spice, whether you enjoy it in a latte, ice cream, or cocktail.
This pumpkin spice cake is as moist and fluffy as can be, thanks to the pumpkin puree.
You get a hefty kick of spice and sweetness from the cake that pairs perfectly with tangy cream cheese frosting.
This apple pie recipe is an easier twist on the classic.
Apple pies are simple enough, with an easy filling of fresh apples, cinnamon sugar, lemon juice, and butter.
This recipe streamlines the prep process by cutting the ratio of apples to crust in half.
I like that the proportion of crust and apple are equal, so I don’t have a mound of apples to eat without the crust.
Just as pumpkin cake goes perfectly with cream cheese frosting, it also makes for a great cheesecake flavor.
I especially love that this recipe adds fall spices to the graham cracker crust.
This cheesecake recipe adds pumpkin puree, spices, and brown sugar to the classic cheesecake filling for a richer-tasting slice.
This is a classic fall dessert to make for the holiday!
You can serve these orange and black marbled brownies for Halloween parties, too!
This recipe has you make regular brownies and pumpkin cheesecake separately, blending them right before you pop the pan into the oven.
The gooey fudginess mixed with the creamy pumpkin cheesecake is a heavenly flavor and texture profile.
Whether you eat it as the perfect breakfast or snack loaf for Thanksgiving weekend, pumpkin bread is a crowd-pleaser.
It’s also a straightforward recipe that’s fun to make with your kids. You combine the dry ingredients, whisk in the wet ingredients, and combine them in a loaf pan.
The dense poundcake consistency and rich pumpkin spice pair wonderfully with a hot cup of coffee.
This is another fun project to try with your kids.
These mini brownie turkeys are too cute! They’re essentially brownie cupcakes with flat tops for decorating.
The tops are essentially the turkey’s body, over which you place a semi-circle of candy corn for the tail feathers and a dollop of icing to anchor the eyes and candy beak in place.
Dump cakes earned their name from the easy assembly of the batter, requiring you to dump all ingredients into one bowl and mix.
This recipe, however, has you dump the ingredients directly into the baking pan, starting with the cinnamon apple filling, then the salted caramel squares, and lastly, the cake mix and butter.
At first glance, you might think this was a pumpkin pie, but you’d be pleasantly mistaken when you bite into it!
This salted honey pie is essentially a honey-infused custard pie, combining honey and salt with eggs and heavy cream.
I thought the addition of brown sugar helped to caramelize the sweetness of the honey.
I recommend serving this slice with goat cheese ice cream.
This ingenious recipe crosses an oatmeal cookie with a gooey apple crisp topping.
Plus, these are bite-sized and portable.
You start with a chewy oatmeal cookie and top it with the classic apple pie filling and easy butter, flour, and cinnamon sugar crumble.
I love that you get a trifecta of chewy, gooey, and crunchy in two magnificent bites.
Roll cakes are impressive yet easy to make.
The trick is in the timing. You must roll the cake while it’s still hot, so it retains a spiral shape before unrolling it, frosting it, and rolling it again.
This recipe is a pumpkin spice cake, frosted with cream cheese, and rolled into a gorgeous log.
This recipe gives you snickerdoodle cookies in every iteration, from crumbled to deconstructed.
The cake assumes the cinnamon sugar profile of a snickerdoodle, while in-between layers are a mixture of a crumbled snickerdoodle cookie and homemade snickerdoodle butter.
The combination of the two makes it taste like snickerdoodle cake layered with snickerdoodle cookie batter.
The icing on the cake, literally and figuratively, is cinnamon buttercream.
Sheet cakes are thinner versions of regular cakes, but just as fluffy and spongey.
This recipe puts plump chunks of tart green apples in the batter with plenty of spices, to create a flavorful and wonderfully textured sheet cake.
The piece de resistance is the salted caramel glaze that converts caramel sauce into a richer yet lighter topping.
If you can’t decide between a crumble and a cake, you can have both with this wonderful Cinnamon Apple Crumb Cake recipe.
You get the fluffy sour cream coffee cake batter with ribbons of cinnamon apple streusel within the cake and on top of it.
I love how the crumbly, sandy streusel gets a juicy, chewy anchor from the apples.
These cute, miniature pies will satisfy your apple pie craving while leaving room for other desserts.
You’ll make a classic apple pie crust, pressing the dough to fill the tin and reserving extra dough to make the adorably latticed tops.
I followed the optional suggestion to add rosemary to the crust, which upped my gourmet flavor profile game!
A Dutch apple pie replaces the standard pie crust top with a crumble streusel.
The buttery pie crust gets a prebaking to ensure its flakiness.
This may seem labor intensive, but it gives you time to make the streusel and apple filling.
While I love a flakey crust on top of an apple pie, the Dutch Apple pie adds a crumbly, crunchy texture that soaks up vanilla ice cream beautifully.
If you mess up a cake, you never have to throw it away. You can just turn it into a trifle!
Joking aside, this elaborate trifle has you layer pumpkin cheesecake, homemade whipped cream, and angel food cake in a deep glass trifle bowl.
Luckily, the pumpkin cheesecake recipe is a no-bake cheesecake that you can throw together while the angel food cake bakes.
Cheesecake is one of the most versatile cakes because it tastes good with any dessert flavor.
I’ve given you some pumpkin cheesecake recipes, so now I’ll appease apple lovers with this caramel apple cheesecake.
This creamy cheesecake recipe has caramel apple in the crust, filling, and topping.
The cinnamon-coated apple slice topping is arranged in a gorgeous lotus shape.
This utterly moist pumpkin crumb cake is the perfect centerpiece for a Thanksgiving Day weekend brunch.
Pumpkin cake is dense and moist by nature due to the pumpkin puree.
This recipe combines a pumpkin cake and a coffee cake recipe by using heaping amounts of pumpkin puree in conjunction with the classic egg and sour cream-laden coffee cake batter.
I often get tunnel vision when it comes to Thanksgiving desserts and focus solely on pies and cakes.
Show cookies some love this Thanksgiving season with these pumpkin spice cookies.
They taste like a pumpkin spice-flavored snickerdoodle in my opinion. The pumpkin puree and corn starch make them dense and chewy.
Cupcakes are the perfect party dessert because you can arrange them in a fun spiral tower and when dessert time comes, you don’t have to waste time cutting and dolling out slices of cake.
These delicious pumpkin cupcakes feature a rich batter with pumpkin puree, brown sugar, and pumpkin spice mix.
I find the cinnamon-infused cream cheese frosting the real showstopper.
This recipe for pumpkin pie twists is both creative and easy. It artfully combines premade baking products to create a unique and pretty dessert pastry.
You use the Pillsbury crescent roll dough to create a flat foundation, atop which you a delicious mixture of pumpkin puree, brown sugar, maple syrup, and spices before adding the second layer of dough.
You get play-by-play instructions with visuals on how to cut the pastries and twist them, too.
I was always curious about the difference between a cobbler and a crumble.
According to this recipe, a cobbler has a cake bottom topped with fruit filling while the crumble tops fruit fill with a crunchy crumble of flour, butter, and often oats.
This cobbler has you prepare a simple vanilla-infused cake batter with extra butter to lay the foundation for a cinnamon apple topping.
No-bake recipes are always a godsend during Thanksgiving when the oven is the kitchen’s hottest commodity.
That’s why this fall-inspired pumpkin tiramisu will become your favorite recipe, based on the famous Italian dessert.
Tiramisu cakes are almost like trifles in that they layer cream and mascarpone with lady finger cookies.
This recipe has you add pumpkin puree and pumpkin spice to the mascarpone.
Peanut butter is as American as apple pie, and its rich, nutty, slightly sweet flavor lends well to sweet and savory dishes.
This peanut butter pie recipe is an exquisite homage to the perfect pairing of peanut butter and chocolate.
You get an Oreo crust, a creamy, tangy cream cheese and peanut butter filling, and a mound of chopped Reese’s cups on top.
Thanksgiving desserts center around pecan, pumpkin, and apples, but you can find a way to sneak chocolate into any dessert and no one will be upset about it.
This chocolate pecan pie recipe is the copycat of a 1950s “Derby Pie” created in Kentucky.
The chocolate chips melt into the luscious combination of the pecans and buttery custard.
This is an easy recipe that has you add the buttery custard filling to a premade pastry crust.
The filling consists of cinnamon and apple butter that you can make or get from the store.
Apple butter combines with whole milk, cornstarch, eggs, and sugar to create a firm custard that melts in your mouth.
This recipe will awaken nostalgia for those crisp fall nights around a campfire.
It’s a s’more in pie form, starting with a buttery graham cracker crust, followed by a firm chocolate custard filling. The final layer is homemade marshmallow fluff.
You even get a classic char on the pillowy tufts of marshmallow cream by putting the pie under the broiler.
A lesser-used gem, pears are the best-kept secret for any fall dessert.
This pear pie recipe assumes a Dutch pie format, with a flakey crust on the bottom and a crumbly streusel topping.
I recommend either Bartlett or Anjou pears because they will hold their shape without becoming mushy like grainier pear varieties.
Instead of combining chocolate and pumpkin flavors, you get a chocolate cream cheese truffle in the shape of a pumpkin.
Cookie balls and truffles are the easiest recipes and also give you free rein for creativity.
This easy three-ingredient oreo ball recipe mashes Oreos and cream cheese then dips them into melted orange wafers.
Using pretzel stick stubs for the pumpkin knob is a clever touch.
A dessert twist on the classic giant cheeseball, this peanut butter-infused cream cheese ball has bits of crushed Reese’s peanut butter cups mixed in.
I love getting a chunk of chocolate to break up the creamy texture.
While cheeseballs generally have an outer coating of chopped nuts, this dessert cheese ball comes coated in a colorful beading of Reese’s pieces.
I recommend serving this with salty pretzels.
Egg roll wrappers are the perfect receptacle for any gooey filling.
They are essentially pasta dough that lends well to steaming, baking, and frying.
Of course, the crunchy bubbly crust of fried egg rolls is superior, which is why you pan-fry these apple pie egg rolls.
They almost remind me of cannoli with apple pie filling.
A classic New England dessert, whoopie pies are essentially cookie sandwiches, but the cookies are more cakey than chewy.
This recipe has you make pumpkin spice cookies, filled with dark brown sugar, pumpkin puree, and spices with a delicious maple cream cheese filling.
Most of us delight in the classic Thanksgiving side dish of mashed sweet potatoes covered in marshmallows, but this Bourbon Sweet Potato pie will soon become everyone’s favorite sweet potato dish.
It’s a dessert take on the side dish, topping a bourbon-infused sweet potato filling with a creamy marshmallow cream topping.
Chai has all the fall spices that usually combine with hot milk for a creamy and comforting cup of tea.
Since chai tea drinks are a milky beverage, adding chai spice to a custardy pie filling is a logical next step.
This super-rich pumpkin pie recipe mixes pumpkin puree with sweetened condensed milk to soak up all the chai spices.
Blondies are a delicious dessert that is a cross between a cookie and a brownie.
While they usually are filled with nuts and chocolate chips, this recipe winterizes the traditional blondie by swapping the nuts and chocolate for apple pie filling.
I love the thin crystalized maple, vanilla, and cinnamon glaze that adds one more layer of flavor to this delectably chewy dessert.
Bundt cakes are a beautiful addition to any dessert table with their circular dips and peaks drizzled in a dainty glaze.
This pumpkin bundt cake is the height of a moist, dense pound cake.
Instead of a heavy cream cheese frosting, you keep things light and classy with a thin cream-cheese glaze.
This dessert manages to combine three desserts into one marvelous bar.
It starts with a buttery shortbread crust, topped with cinnamon-spiced cheesecake, spiced apple pie filling, and cinnamon streusel topping.
The depth of flavor and texture in these bars is incredible and well worth the effort of assembling each layer.
These pumpkin cookie butter truffles have an impressive fall flavor profile.
You combine pumpkin puree with cream cheese, fall spices, and Speculoos cookies into creamy cookie butter.
If you’re not familiar with Speculoos cookies, they are synonymous with Biscoff cookies,
Thanksgiving can be a nightmare for vegans as every casserole and dessert is full of cream, butter, and cheese.
Consequently, I’ve included a few vegan recipes please those plant-based eaters in your family.
In this recipe, pumpkin puree and spices combine with cashews, coconut oil, and gellan to create a thick pudding consistency.
There are plenty of vegan whipped cream recipes out there that would make a great topping.
Another plant-based recipe, Vegan Pumpkin Bread is easy, accessible, and could fool any dairy lover.
You use canola oil instead of butter.
Using baking soda and baking powder is enough to aid this vegan loaf in rising without needing eggs or egg substitutes.
The pumpkin puree makes this bread moist and dense. I recommend taking the suggestion of adding chocolate chips.
Bread pudding is one of the more decadent and impressive desserts that soak thick slices of brioche or challah with a rich custard before baking it.
This bread pudding recipe is over the top, adding pumpkin puree to the thick, buttery custard.
If that wasn’t enough, you top it all off with a caramel pecan praline sauce.
A creative take on the classic fall festival fare, these caramel apple cupcakes feature a thick coating of caramel sauce and a popsicle stick protruding from the middle as if it were a caramel apple.
I thought the shredded green apples in the cinnamon and brown sugar batter made for a nice texture profile in the cake.
This elaborate recipe gives you a double dose of gooey pecans and a hefty tangy cheesecake to absorb the filling.
The nilla wafer and butter crust go well with the pecan-custard filling.
This recipe sandwiches the thick cheesecake between two layers of pecan custard.
This might be the richest recipe yet. A sliver of a slice is more than enough!
Dump cakes are a distinct type of cake that became popular during the 80s.
Named for the unique method of dumping cake mix on top of a canned fruit filling, dump cakes are user-friendly and quick fixes.
This pumpkin dump cake has you dump yellow cake mix over a pumpkin filling of pumpkin puree, eggs, spices, and evaporated milk.
I’ve covered some vegan recipes, so now it’s time to include gluten-averse dietary preferences.
This super-rich butter pie may be filled with dairy, but it’s gluten-free!
A cinnamon sugar apple butter pie filling has a sweet and creamy filling with hints of apple and cinnamon.
The crust is just as buttery and flakey as any wheat flour crust I’ve ever tasted.
Cheesecakes are usually fluffy with a dense crust, but this delicious fall variety has a delightful crunchy apple crisp topping.
Apple crisps top apple pie filling with a crunchy crumble of oats, sugar cinnamon, and butter. You usually pair it with vanilla ice cream.
This dessert pairs apple crisp with a vanilla cheesecake.
Churros are a beloved Mexican dessert featuring thick straws of fried dough rolled in a cinnamon sugar coating.
This clever recipe uses premade pie crust stamped into small circles, which you bake instead of frying before brushing it with butter and rolling in cinnamon sugar.
Now all you need is a cup of Abuelita hot chocolate to dip them in!
Rum is, after all, a spirit made from sugarcane.
Therefore, a rum-soaked cake is just another way to load on the sugar.
This luxuriously moist cake has dark rum in both the batter and the sauce.
Don’t worry, it’s kid-friendly! It’s also an incredibly easy recipe that involves dumping all ingredients into a pan.
Shortbread makes an amazing crust since the key ingredient in both crust and shortbread is butter.
This recipe has a thick layer of dense and buttery shortbread infused with cinnamon and nutmeg to capture the fall flavors.
You then top it off with an apple crisp, with gooey apple pie filling and brown sugar crumble.
If you’d like to revisit those crazy college days, try this fall dessert take on those dangerously delicious shots you used to suck out of plastic dressing dispensers.
These apple pie jello shots are a bit more elaborate and sophisticated.
Instead of the tasteless vodka shot, these apple jello shots use smokey whiskey and apple cider to keep in the warmth.
They get a tantalizing dollop of cinnamon-infused whipped cream to boot.
Cranberries are the key ingredients in a myriad of fall-inspired cocktails, muffins, and sauces.
If you’re tired of pumpkin, apples, and pecans, give these flavorful cookies a try.
The tartness of the fresh cranberries and slightly bitter walnuts blend perfectly into the dense buttery, brown sugar dough.
While it may sound odd to American tastes, cheese is a popular dessert in many European countries.
Baked brie is as gooey and luxurious as a molten lava cake. Even as an appetizer, you serve baked brie with a sweet spread to complement its rich buttery flavor.
This easy recipe has you bake a round of brie while you whip up a caramel sauce with chopped pecans to pour over the brie.
I recommend serving it with apple slices.
These precious bite-sized mini pecan pies are as delicious as the standard pecan pie, but they ensure an equal proportion of crust and filling.
With all the miniature pies and bars on my menu, you could create a whole new spread that’ll allow everyone to try all your favorite types of pie on the table.
I always make fudgy brownies with chunks of pecans, so I jumped at the opportunity to try this recipe.
You use a boxed triple fudge brownie mix to match the gooey pecan pie topping.
The pecan pie filling makes these fudgy brownies even gooier, but the toasted chopped pecans add an incredible nutty crunch.
I serve these a la mode with vanilla ice cream.
Final Thoughts
Pair these Thanksgiving desserts with a matching Thanksgiving cocktail and enjoy your meal!
Many of these desserts are perfect for the full holiday season, but you can also check out our favorite Christmas desserts to make as well.
60 Delicious Thanksgiving Desserts For the Holidays
It’s not Thanksgiving dinner without dessert! Check out our favorite Thanksgiving desserts to make to complete your holiday meal, complete with recipes.
Ingredients
- Pecan Pie Bars
- Apple Cake
- Apple Fritters
- Apple Pie Bars
- Salted Caramel Apple Pie
- Pecan Pie
- Pumpkin Spice Cake
- Apple Pie
- Pumpkin Cheesecake
- Pumpkin Brownies
- Pumpkin Bread
- Mini Brownie Turkeys
- Caramel Apple Dump Cake
- Salted Honey Pie
- Apple Crisp Cookie Cups
- Pumpkin Roll
- Snickerdoodle Layer Cake
- Salted Caramel Apple Sheet Cake
- Cinnamon Apple Crumb Cake
- Muffin Tin Mini Apple Pies
- Dutch Apple Pie
- Pumpkin Cheesecake Trifle
- Caramel Apple Cheesecake
- Pumpkin Coffee Cake
- Pumpkin Spice Cookies
- Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting
- Pumpkin Pie Twists
- Cinnamon Apple Cobbler
- No Bake Pumpkin Tiramisu
- Peanut Butter Pie Recipe
- Chocolate Pecan Pie
- Apple Butter Pie
- S'more Pie
- Pear Pie
- Pumpkin Oreo Balls
- Reeses Pieces Peanut Butter Ball
- Apple Pie Egg Rolls
- Pumpkin Whoopie Pies
- Bourbon Sweet Potato Pie
- Chai Spice Pumpkin Pie
- Maple Glazed Apple Blondies
- Pumpkin Bundt Cake
- Apple Streusel Cheesecake Bars
- Pumpkin Cookie Butter Truffles
- Vegan Pumpkin Pie Pudding
- Vegan Pumpkin Bread
- Pumpkin Praline Bread Pudding
- Caramel Apple Cupcakes
- Pecan Pie Cheesecake
- Pumpkin Dump Cake
- Cinnamon Sugar Apple Butter Pie
- Apple Crisp Cheesecake
- Churro Cookies
- Rum Cake
- Apple Crisp Shortbread Bars
- Apple Pie Jello Shots
- Cranberry Walnut Shortbread Cookies
- Baked Brie with Salted Caramel Pecans
- Mini Pecan Pies
- Pecan Pie Brownies
Instructions
1. Choose your favorite recipe.
2. Gather the necessary ingredients.
3. Prep and cook your recipe.
4. Enjoy!