12 Winter Holiday Recipes That Use In-Season Ingredients

Petite Beef Wellingtons

'Tis the season for gift wrapping, so go ahead and apply your bow-making skills to dinner. Top tender slices of beef tenderloin with a mustard-mushroom sauté and wrap it up in puff pastry—a bow made from pastry scraps adds a special touch.

Crispy Potatoes with Rosemary Salt

Two key elements result in these elegance and flavorful potato side dish—a fresh rosemary salt and a mandoline for superbly skinny slices. Though this side dish looks like it could be served at a high-end restaurant, it's simple make at home. Plus, it contains only six ingredients, almost all of which you probably have in your kitchen.

Buy It: PL8 Professional Mandoline $86, Bed Bath & Beyond

Sausage-Stuffed Honeynut Squash

Honeynut squash is the smaller (about 5 inches tall) and tender-skinned relative of butternut squash. Look for honeynut squash at farmers markets, select grocers, and specialty stores like Trader Joe's and Whole Foods.

Sparkling Cranberry-Ginger Panna Cotta

Creamy vanilla bean panna cotta contrasts a bright ginger-cranberry mixture in this layered gelatin dessert. Layering the two in small glasses results in a modern look. The garnish of sugared cranberries hints at the "cocktail" inspiration of the dessert's ginger beer and adds sparkle for a holiday presentation.

Buy It: Anchor Hocking 5-Ounce Juice Glasses (set of 12), $36, Amazon

Egg and Sausage Bread Bakes

Sure, you've made plenty of egg bakes in the past, but this one literally breaks the mold. No longer confined to a casserole dish, this sausage, egg, and veggie "casserole" bakes inside a hollowed out French bread loaf. Use the removed bread to make homemade croutons, stuffing, or dippers for a slow cooker party dip.

Malted Butter Riches

Give friends a hint at the taste of these by scattering crushed malted milk balls over the top. Baker Jessie Sheehan infused malt powder, one of her favorite ingredients, into the batter for more flavor.

PB&M Fudge

Baker Jessie Sheehan turns the childhood favorite of a fluffernutter sandwich into a fudge recipe with the same sweet-salty notes. She also made the cooking process easier by eliminating the need for a candy thermometer by including sweetened condensed milk, which doesn't require as much precision to create optimal fudginess.

Tahini Blossoms

Despite what it looks like, there's no peanut butter in these cookies. Baker Jessie Sheehan uses tahini (sesame seed paste) instead for complex nuttiness and subtle earthy flavor for this global spin on peanut butter blossoms.

Spiced Rice with Pickled Quince and Pomegranate

Get a head start on this gorgeous rice recipe from food writer Danielle Centoni by pickling the quince up to a week ahead. Day of your event, cook the rice then toss together a few more ingredients. Simple, yes, but six spices give it deliciously complex flavors.

Pomegranate Pot Roast

Bring back the pot roast for Sunday dinner with a fresh-tasting spin from Danielle Centoni. She swapped in seasonal persimmons for potatoes and stirred pomegranate juice into the braising liquid to create a new Sunday dinner staple.

Buy It: Le Creuset 5.5-Quart Dutch Oven, $399.95, Sur la Table

Mochi Latkes

Writer Kristin Eriko Posner embraces her Japanese American heritage and Jewish faith in her recipes. Here, mochi flour gives latkes crisp edges and a slightly chewy interior. Mochi flour is made from milled mochi rice, which is the variety used in sticky rice. What's the best way to top latkes? "I set out a latke bar with an array of toppings," Kristin says. "Some options are classic like lox and crème fraiche. Others, like matcha salt, have a Japanese tilt."

Yuzu Doughnuts

Like most citrus, yuzu (a tart Asian citrus) comes into season in early winter. Writer Kristin Eriko Posner uses it in her yeasted doughnut recipe filling. "At the darkest time of year, it's refreshing to have a flavor that's so bright," she says.