Every fall honey recipe, sorted by occasion
This page collects the 23 fall recipes on this site that use honey: apples, pumpkin and squash, pecans, Halloween candy, the Thanksgiving table and warm drinks. Use the picker below to filter by occasion and by how much time you have. Every card links to the full recipe with ingredients, steps and a printable recipe card.
The two dates to plan around: Halloween is Saturday, October 31, 2026, and Thanksgiving is Thursday, November 26, 2026.
One rule runs through all of these recipes. Honey browns faster than sugar because fructose, one of its two main sugars, starts to caramelize at 230°F (110°C), against 320°F (160°C) for table sugar (Belitz, Grosch and Schieberle, Food Chemistry). That is why the baking recipes here bake 25°F cooler than their sugar versions, and why a honey glaze goes on in the last half hour, not at the start.
Pick a fall recipe
Choose the occasion and how much time you have. Honey amounts, times and yields come from each recipe card.
23 recipes
Honey apple crisp55 min · 7 tbsp honey (147 g) · 6-8 servings
Honey cinnamon baked apples50 min · 4 tbsp honey (84 g) · 4 servings
Slow-cooker honey apple butter10 h 20 min · 8 tbsp honey (168 g) · 4 cups (about 32 servings)
Honey caramel sauce (apple dip)15 min · 12 tbsp honey (252 g) · 1 cup (about 16 tablespoons)
Honey pumpkin bread1 h 5 min · 8 tbsp honey (168 g) · 1 loaf (10 slices)
Honey roasted butternut squash40 min · 4 tbsp honey (84 g) · 4-6 servings
Honey roasted sweet potatoes40 min · 3 tbsp honey (63 g) · 6 servings
Honey pecan pie (no corn syrup)1 h 10 min · 1 cup honey (336 g) · 8 slices
Honey roasted pecans20 min · 2 tbsp honey (42 g) · 2 cups (about 8 servings)
Honey roasted walnuts20 min · 2 tbsp honey (42 g) · 2 cups
Honey roasted almonds30 min · 3 tbsp honey (63 g) · 2 cups (about 8 servings)
Honey cinnamon popcorn10 min · 3 tbsp honey (63 g) · 8 cups (4 servings)
Honeycomb toffee (sponge candy)1 h 25 min · 4 tbsp honey (84 g) · One 9-inch square slab (about 30 pieces)
Honey oatmeal cookies30 min · 8 tbsp honey (168 g) · 24 cookies
Honey roasted turkey3 h 30 min · 1 cup honey (336 g) · 10-12 servings
Honey glazed ham2 h 45 min · 12 tbsp honey (252 g) · 12-16 servings
Honey garlic Brussels sprouts35 min · 3 tbsp honey (63 g) · 4 servings
Honey roasted carrots30 min · 3 tbsp honey (63 g) · 4-6 servings
Honey cornbread25 min · 5⅓ tbsp honey (112 g) · 9 servings
Honey butter rolls2 h · 4 tbsp honey (84 g) · 12 rolls (12 servings)
Honey cinnamon rolls2 h 25 min · 16⅓ tbsp honey (343 g) · 12 rolls
Warm honey drinks (spiced cider)20 min · 3 tbsp honey (63 g) · 4 mugs (8 fl oz each)
Honey ginger tea15 min · 2 tbsp honey (42 g) · 2 servings
Apples: crisp, baked apples, apple butter and caramel dip
Honey apple crisp uses 3 tablespoons of honey in the filling and ¼ cup in the oat topping: 7 tablespoons for 6 to 8 servings, 55 minutes start to finish. Honey cinnamon baked apples take 1 tablespoon of honey per apple, 4 apples in 50 minutes.
Slow-cooker honey apple butter is the make-ahead one: ½ cup of honey, 10 hours 20 minutes mostly unattended, about 4 cups at the end. For a Halloween party, honey caramel sauce is ¾ cup of honey, butter and cream in 15 minutes: set it out as a dip for apple slices.
For apple desserts, a mild or medium honey works best. Goldenrod honey, the Northeast's fall honey, is sold for apple and pear desserts; buckwheat makes a darker, maltier crisp topping.
Get the Honey Buyer's Cheat Sheet (free PDF)
16 varieties on one page — color, flavor, best use and what a fair price looks like — from the 268 honeys we track.
Pumpkin, squash and sweet potatoes
Honey pumpkin bread is one bowl, ½ cup of honey and no mixer: 65 minutes for a 10-slice loaf. Use pumpkin purée, not pumpkin pie filling, which already has sugar and spices in it.
Honey roasted butternut squash uses 3 tablespoons of honey before roasting and 1 more to drizzle at the end, 40 minutes. Honey roasted sweet potatoes take 3 tablespoons for 6 servings, also 40 minutes. Both go on the Thanksgiving table too.
Pecans and other nuts
Honey pecan pie replaces corn syrup with a full cup of honey, as much as the turkey and only a little less than a batch of cinnamon rolls. A 12 oz jar of honey holds about 16 tablespoons (340 g at 21 g per tablespoon, USDA FoodData Central), so one jar makes one pie.
For bowls and cheese boards: honey roasted pecans and honey roasted walnuts each use 2 tablespoons of honey for 2 cups of nuts in 20 minutes; honey roasted almonds use 3 tablespoons in 30 minutes. Honey-coated nuts go from toasted to burnt in a minute or two, so pull the tray when the first ones smell toasty.
Halloween: honeycomb toffee, popcorn and cookies
New this fall: honeycomb toffee, the crunchy, bubbly candy also sold as sponge candy and cinder toffee. It is sugar, ¼ cup of honey and a tablespoon of baking soda cooked to 300°F, and the recipe has a calculator for the right temperature at your altitude.
Honey cinnamon popcorn is the quick one: 3 tablespoons of honey, 8 cups of popcorn, 10 minutes. Honey oatmeal cookies make 24 with ½ cup of honey in 30 minutes. With the caramel dip and a bowl of roasted pecans, that is a Halloween party table.
The Thanksgiving table
The main: honey roasted turkey uses ½ cup of honey in the brine and ½ cup in the glaze for a 12 to 14 lb bird, 3 hours 30 minutes. If your family does ham, honey glazed ham uses ¾ cup of honey; the honey glaze guide and best honey for glazed ham cover the glaze itself.
Sides: honey garlic Brussels sprouts and honey roasted carrots take 3 tablespoons each. Honey cornbread uses ⅓ cup in 25 minutes; honey butter rolls use ¼ cup and take 2 hours with rising. For the morning, honey cinnamon rolls use just over a cup across dough, filling and glaze.
Converting your own family recipe? The rule on this site is ¾ cup of honey per cup of sugar, about 3 tablespoons less liquid, ¼ teaspoon of baking soda and an oven 25°F cooler. The baking substitution calculator and substituting honey for sugar in baking walk through it.
How much honey each recipe uses
The chart below puts every recipe on one scale: tablespoons of honey per batch, from each recipe card. The range runs from 2 tablespoons for a tray of roasted pecans or a pot of ginger tea to just over a cup for a batch of cinnamon rolls. Pecan pie and the turkey each take a full cup.
If you are shopping for Thanksgiving, add up the recipes you plan to make. A 1 lb jar holds about 21½ tablespoons; a 12 oz jar about 16.
existing recipe new this fallGrams at 21 g per tablespoon (USDA FoodData Central 169640).
Warm drinks
For the cold evenings between Halloween and Christmas, warm honey drinks has spiced cider, masala chai, hot cocoa, a hot toddy and a honey steamer, with a calculator for honey per mug. Honey ginger tea uses 2 tablespoons for 2 mugs.
Which honey to buy for fall cooking
For most of these recipes a mild honey is the right call: clover or wildflower. They sweeten without taking over. Use a darker honey where you want to taste it: buckwheat in gingerbread and spice cookies, cranberry blossom in the Thanksgiving glaze and cranberry sauce.
For the honeys of the season itself, see fall harvest honey, and the honey of the month for this month's pick. If you are giving honey this year, the holiday honey gift guide has picks by budget and 2026 shipping dates.
