45 Quintessential New England Recipes

Drawn from its coasts, mountains, farmland, and forests, New England food tells a far bigger story than its compact geography might suggest. The region’s foodways are rooted in the traditions of Indigenous peoples, including the Abenaki, Narragansett, Wabanaki, Wampanoag, and others, who cultivated beans, corn, and squash; harvested cranberries and blueberries; tapped maple trees; and relied on abundant coastal waters. Johnnycakes, succotash, and clam bakes reflect the lasting importance of Indigenous ingredients and knowledge. English colonists and Puritans later adapted both local foods and their own culinary traditions, favoring baking, boiling, steaming, and stewing — techniques that helped shape everything from baked beans and brown bread to boiled dinners.

Commerce left a more complicated imprint. Molasses, now closely associated with New England baked beans, brown bread, and desserts, arrived in the region in enormous quantities through the Atlantic triangle trade, which exchanged raw materials and manufactured goods for human beings held in slavery. Over the centuries, successive generations of immigrants added new layers to the region’s cooking. Portuguese communities brought ingredients such as linguiça to southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island; Italian immigration profoundly influenced the food of cities across southern New England; and Greek Americans helped establish the distinctive pan-baked pizza still found at countless New England pizzerias. In New Haven, meanwhile, Italian Americans produced the justly celebrated coal-fired, thin-crusted style known as apizza.

New England has also played an outsized role in defining how Americans cook at home. Published in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1796, Amelia Simmons’ American Cookery is recognized as the first known cookbook written by an American and explicitly adapted cooking to the ingredients and circumstances of the new country. A century later, Fannie Farmer’s 1896 The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book helped bring greater precision and standardization to recipe writing, influencing generations of American cooks. Never forget: The chocolate chip cookie was born at the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts.

The region’s culinary identity can be just as vividly expressed through hyperlocal favorites and language. (Take a sip from the bubbler, then top your ice cream with jimmies.) In Maine, bitter, gentian-flavored Moxie is the official state soft drink and tiny wild blueberries are prized seasonal delicacies. In Massachusetts, try the North Shore’s heaping roast beef sandwiches or a Fluffernutter made with Lynn-manufactured marshmallow creme. In Rhode Island, enjoy a subtly sweet coffee milk alongside a New York System hot dog. (Across the region, the bun — always — is split on top.) Connecticut pizza and warm, buttery lobster rolls call for repeat visits as does the dairy-heavy bounty of Vermont and New Hampshire, where creemees mean soft serve, frappes mean milkshakes, and milkshakes mean frothy, sweetened milk. Come maple season in late winter and early spring, the sugar houses open, and the pancakes beckon. Who would resist?

This collection brings together recipes from some of New England’s most notable culinary voices, including Massachusetts native Emeril Lagasse alongside F&W Best New Chefs Jamie Bissonnette, Mary Dumont, and Johanne Killeen. Their recipes celebrate the breadth of the region’s cooking, from lobster, clams, and cod to cranberries, blueberries, maple syrup, and abundant cheese and dairy. New England food could never tell the whole story of American cooking, but American cooking wouldn’t be what it is without it.