These Are the Thanksgiving Pie Recipes Everyone Actually Wants (2024)

FAQs

What is the most common pie for Thanksgiving? ›

Pumpkin Pie Is The Must-Have Fall Dessert That Reigns Supreme.

The pies don't take up precious oven space on Thanksgiving Day. The space in the oven is coveted on Thanksgiving. If you prepare the pies early so you can eat them on Thanksgiving Eve, then they'll be out of the way. Those who want dessert after Thanksgiving dinner will still be able to eat pie.

The general rule for a holiday family meal, which takes into account larger portions than a normal meal, budgets for each person, on average, to eat one three-inch wedge of a nine-inch pie (there are six of these slices in the pie). Simplified, a family should have one full pie for every six guests at the table.

The clear winner for the United States as a whole was (not surprisingly) apple pie with more than 27% of sales going to the traditional flavor.

Apple Pie. What it is: Somehow both quintessentially English and American, this may be the most famous pie of all.

Marie Callender's Chocolate Satin Pie

This pie is the winner for the highest calorie, sugar, and fat content of all the pies we reviewed.

Pumpkin Pie's Seasonal Connection to Thanksgiving

Pumpkin pie is ubiquitous at Thanksgiving dinners around the country. An estimated 50 million pumpkin pies will be consumed on Thanksgiving Day alone.

When in doubt, choose pumpkin pie. In competition with those mentioned above, it offers the fewest calories, and least fat and added sugar. It's also loaded with vitamins and minerals such as vitamin B12, thiamin, riboflavin, folate, niacin, phosphorous, calcium, and iron.

You can prepare and bake the pie up to two days in advance, and it will still taste great on the big day. Just make sure you store the pie in the refrigerator—not on the kitchen counter—until you are ready to serve it.

What do you eat the day before Thanksgiving? ›

A 1653 French cookbook contained one of the earliest recipes of a “pumpkin pie” where milk-boiled pumpkins were strained and baked in a crust. While recipes in the late 17th century in both England and New England described filling a hollowed-out pumpkin with sweetened milk or sliced apples and cooking it in a fire.

Along with pecan and pumpkin pies, Costco supposedly makes quite a few of its famous baked goods from scratch. The garlic bread, lemon meringue pie, country French bread, cherry pie, granola nut bread, and peach pie are all made inside the Costco bakery.

Given cheesecake's structure, ingredients, and the way it is baked, cooked, and served, we're chiming in to say that cheesecake is a hybrid between cake and pie. It's not possible to pick a clear-cut side. It's a category all on its own, and it's a delicious one at that.

In 2019, when many families gathered for the last time before a pandemic-enforced hiatus, Costco reportedly sold about 6.3 million pumpkin pies. The retailer claimed that fully a third of those pies were sold in the three days leading up to Thanksgiving —that's Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of that holiday week.

In general, pie reigns supreme as a Thanksgiving dessert. While some families have their nice selections of pie servings, tradition says apple, pumpkin pie, and a southern pecan pie are the go-tos, typically made with a buttery pastry pie crust.

While pumpkin pie often comes to mind when thinking of Thanksgiving treats, it was easily outpaced by apple pie across the U.S., taking the top spot in 34 states, with pumpkin pie the apparent favorite in just 14 states. The two outliers?

3. Apple. There are five states they prefer apple pie to other flavors.