10 Savory Fall Snacks Ideas You’Re Gonna Love

Okay, savory fall snacks.

This is my favorite kind of food to make and I overdo it every year.

Everyone else is deep in pumpkin desserts and I’d take something salty every time.

Each one below has a pin so you can see what you’re aiming for, and a link to a recipe that has actually been made.

Ten of them.

1. Pumpkin Spice Roasted Nuts

Nuts, one beaten egg white, sugar, and whatever’s in the spice jar.

The egg white is what makes the coating stick, and it’s the step everyone skips.

300 degrees, not 350, stirred every ten minutes, and they come out soft and turn crisp on the pan as they cool.

Buy pumpkin spice premixed unless you enjoy measuring out four jars, and spread the nuts in one layer on a rimmed baking sheet with space between them.

Salt them harder than feels right, because the sugar flattens it, and a pinch of cayenne in with the spice is the version I actually make.

They keep two weeks in a jar, which is the other reason I bother.

The pin is The Fresh 20’s spiced nuts, which bind the spice with maple syrup instead of egg white, and that gives you a stickier, glossier coating that’s better for gifting in a jar.

2. Caramelized Onion and Apple Tartlets

The onions are the whole job and they take forty minutes.

Low heat, stirred now and then, until they’re brown and sweet and about a quarter of what you started with; rushing them on high gives you burnt edges around a raw middle.

Puff pastry, a spoon of onion, thin apple over the top, then the edges folded in over the filling.

Apple has to be thin or it stays crunchy while the pastry browns, so this is what the mandoline slicer is for, and use the guard.

Thyme goes on before they bake, not after.

The pin is The Kitchn’s caramelized onion, apple and cheddar tart, the one-big-sheet version with sharp white cheddar, and it par-bakes the pastry first, pricked all over with a fork, which is how you keep the underside from staying pale.

3. Maple-Glazed Bacon-Wrapped Brussels Sprouts

Half-cook the bacon before it goes anywhere near a whole sprout.

Raw bacon around a raw sprout means picking between chewy bacon and a burnt sprout, so five minutes in the oven on its own, then wrap, then back in.

Thick cut bacon is worth the extra here, since thin bacon shrinks and unwraps itself halfway through.

The maple syrup goes on in the last five minutes, because put on at the start it’s black by the time the bacon’s done.

One toothpick per sprout holds the wrap shut, pushed through the seam, and anything bigger than a walnut gets halved or the middle stays raw.

The pin is Peel with Zeal’s balsamic bacon wrapped Brussels sprouts: every sprout halved lengthwise so it’s one bite, which is why she gets away with thin bacon straight on raw, and a balsamic, brown sugar and Dijon glaze reduced until it coats a spoon, brushed on the same way as the maple.

4. Cheddar and Chive Scones

Cold butter, and I mean properly cold.

Cut it into the flour with a pastry cutter until it looks like gravel, then stop.

Grate the cheddar yourself off a block, on the big holes, because pre-shredded is coated in starch and never melts into pockets, it just dries out.

Drop them in rough mounds on the baking sheet and don’t smooth the tops.

Bake them hot, 400 to 425, so the outside sets before the butter runs out of them.

The pin is Chisel & Fork’s cheese and chive scones, which grate frozen butter on a box grater instead of cutting it in, the faster route to the same gravel, and bake at 400 for 20 to 22 minutes.

5. Savory Pumpkin Hummus

Pumpkin makes hummus sweeter than you expect, so this one lives or dies on the acid: lemon, and more than you’d put in a normal batch.

Cumin and smoked paprika keep it from drifting toward pie filling.

Canned chickpeas are fine, rinsed well, and pinching the skins off is tedious and does make it smoother.

Buy the tahini that pours at room temperature, since the stiff seized-up kind turns the whole bowl grainy, and stir the jar from the bottom before you measure.

Get canned pumpkin puree and read the label twice, because the pie filling sits right next to it and looks identical.

Half a cup of puree to a can of chickpeas keeps it tasting like hummus; go to a full can and it’s a pumpkin dip, which is also fine as long as you know that’s what you’re making.

The pin is Plays Well With Butter’s pumpkin hummus, the full-can version, balanced with cumin, cinnamon and a pinch of cayenne, with ice water streamed in a tablespoon at a time for the texture.

6. Spiced Butternut Squash Chips

These aren’t really chips at an eighth of an inch, and I’d stop calling them that.

Cut from the bulb end you get rings with a hole through the middle, and at that thickness they roast more than they crisp.

Even thickness matters more than thin does, since a tray of mixed thicknesses gives you burnt and raw at the same time, so set the mandoline once and leave it.

Squash puts out a lot of sugar as it roasts, and a silicone baking mat stops that sugar gluing them to the pan.

Oil first, then the spice, or half the spice stays in the bowl, and sage leaves thrown on for the last few minutes go crisp.

The pin is Organic Authority’s butternut squash chips with herbes de Provence, sliced as thin as the mandoline goes and roasted low and long, 375 for 20 minutes then 350 for another 30 until they curl, which is the only way I’ve seen them come out actually crisp.

7. Herb-Infused Sweet Potato Fries

Sweet potato fries never get as crisp as regular ones and no recipe is going to fix that.

What helps is a spoonful of cornstarch tossed on before the oil.

Cut them thick, in wedges, because matchsticks go limp on you and wedges hold their shape.

Space on the pan matters more than anything else here: two trays, not one crowded one, since crowded means steamed.

Fresh rosemary goes on before baking, because it’s tough enough to survive the oven, and thyme leaves go on after, because they scorch and turn bitter.

Flaky salt at the end, a garlic aioli alongside that’s really just mayo, crushed garlic and lemon, and eat them straight off the pan, because they don’t hold.

The pin is The Delicious Plate’s baked sweet potato wedges: a tablespoon of cornstarch shaken in with dried thyme, paprika and garlic powder, 450 degrees, flipped once, and the same rule about a single layer.

8. Apple and Cheddar Quesadillas

A tart apple, sliced thin, or the whole thing goes sweet on you.

Sharp cheddar stands up to the apple, and mild just disappears under it.

One tortilla folded into a half moon flips more easily than two stacked, and nothing slides out the side.

Medium heat in a cast iron skillet, and give it longer than you think.

Sage leaves fried in a little butter, then laid on top once it’s out of the pan.

The pin is The Modern Proper’s apple, caramelized onion and spinach quesadilla, which uses fontina and a Honeycrisp and bakes them in the oven brushed with oil instead of working the skillet, which is the way to do eight at once for a crowd.

9. Sage and Parmesan Popcorn

The problem with any seasoned popcorn is that nothing sticks to it.

Butter goes on first, while the popcorn is hot, then the cheese, then the sage, in a big bowl in three goes with a toss between each one.

Grate the Parmigiano Reggiano off the block as fine as you can get it, because anything coarser slides to the bottom and you’re left with plain popcorn and a pile of cheese.

Dried sage beats fresh here, since fresh sage is damp and it clumps; crush it between your fingers on the way in to wake it up.

A Whirley Pop leaves fewer unpopped kernels than a pot with a lid, mostly because you’re stirring the whole time.

Go light on the salt, the parmesan brings plenty.

The pin is Five Heart Home’s rosemary parmesan popcorn, the same idea with rosemary: she warms the herb and a smashed garlic clove in olive oil, pulls them out, and uses the oil as the glue instead of butter.

10. Cranberry and Brie Crostini

Whole berry cranberry sauce, not the jellied log, spooned on so the berries stay whole.

Brie at room temperature spreads, and cold brie tears the bread up, so take it out an hour before.

Toast the crostini dry first and brush the oil on after, so they don’t soften under the cheese.

Assemble these last.

Thyme on top, and a crack of black pepper against all that sweetness.

The pin is The Foul-Mouth Gourmet’s cranberry brie crostini, which cooks fresh cranberries down with brown sugar, cider and a splash of wine, warms the brie on the toast for four or five minutes, and bakes rather than broils, because broiler crostini go from pale to black while you look away.

For the sweet side of the same table, the fall macarons post covers pumpkin spice, maple pecan and eight more.

And once the season turns, the Christmas finger foods post picks up where this one leaves off.