The Best Thanksgiving Pie Recipes and Other Holiday Desserts for 2021

Find the recipe below for the lemon meringue pie pictured here, top right, along with a strawberry pie and a blueberry crumble pie from Woodruff’s Cafe and Pie Shop in Monroe, Va. Photo: Stacey Van Berkel for The Wall Street Journal IN SOME WAYS , 2021 isn’t so different […]

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IN SOME WAYS, 2021 isn’t so different from 1621, the year of the fabled first Thanksgiving: We come to the table with a craving for some reassuring sweetness as well as a wish to meet the mere fact of persevering with an act of gratitude. As far as I know, no one has come up with a better way to satisfy both impulses than baking a pie. We’ve rounded up some of our favorite recipes from the past few years, from a classic but impressive sweet-potato pie to a sweet-and-savory apple gouda one. There are ample options, too, for vegan and gluten-free bakers. And if you really want to keep things as easy as possible—with a 15-minute mince pie, for instance, or an elegantly simple French pumpkin custard—not a problem. We’ve got you covered.

Some bakers approach Thanksgiving with the same sense of competition the Dallas Cowboys’ QB brings to the field that day. For these ambitious types we offer recipes for a caramel-apple pie élevée with a magnificent basket-weave crust a full three inches high; a sweet potato pie dolloped with elegant whipped-cream quenelles; a striking chocolate-rye lattice filled with billows of snowy meringue; and a fragrant cranberry-sage pie topped with a starburst crust. Though a lemon meringue pie is indisputably an American classic, to many it might not sound like the typical Thanksgiving choice, and in this case they’d be right: The recipe, from Angela Scott of Woodruff’s Cafe and Pie Shop in Monroe, Va., is a real standout, crowned with spectacular, perfectly toasted meringue peaks.