This story was originally published in February 2021.
It’s maple tapping season in Maine. Whether you are tapping maple trees for the first time in your yard and making your own syrup, or just enjoying the glut of delicious syrup at the farmers market, maple syrup is an ingredient that can be used in a number of different dishes, from breakfast and lunch to dinner and dessert.
Here are seven recipes that use maple syrup that will help you to make the most of maple season in Maine.
Maple roasted Brussel sprouts with Andouille sausage and apricots
This dish has a balanced unity of flavors and textures — sweet and spicy, tender but hearty. Hearty roasted Brussels sprouts are tossed with bits of savory andouille sausage and sweet dried apricots and then finished with a maple and mustard glaze. Try maple roasted Brussel sprouts with Andouille sausage and apricots for a feast for the taste buds.
Maple granola
Maple provides crunchy granola with sweetness and so much more. Unlike one-dimensional granulated sugar, maple syrup supplies the caramel, vanilla and floral notes that make granola interesting to eat. If you are making this recipe for maple granola, make sure you keep an eye on it — granola is prone to burning, and it would be a shame to waste all that delicious maple.
Warm chipotle maple roasted sweet potato salad with farro and kale
This salad has healthy ancient grains and crisp greens, but the sweet potatoes are the piece de resistance. Though they can be a divisive vegetable, when sweet potatoes are glazed with a chipotle maple sauce and slow-roasted, they are sweet-spicy perfection. Check out this recipe for warm chipotle maple roasted sweet potato salad with farro and kale to see for yourself.
Maple bacon baked brie
Creamy brie topped with a mountain of crumbled bacon and maple syrup and enrobed in flaky puff pastry is an easy but ethereal kitchen treat. Consider serving this baked brie with sliced apples, crackers or warm slices of crusty bread — or you can just slice a piece and eat it by itself. Here’s how to make maple bacon bake brie.
Honey maple cornbread
This sweet northern-style cornbread is easy to prepare and bakes to a tender, lighter crumb in just 30 minutes. The simple batter is basic enough to toss together any night of the week. This recipe for honey maple cornbread is a wonderfully warming dish to eat with your favorite chili.
Maple pie
Maple syrup pie fits nicely into the pie-filling void between the last apples from the previous fall and the first red stalks of rhubarb. The family of sugar and egg pies, often called transparent pies, includes lemon meringue, vinegar, pecan, chess, shoo-fly and related cousins such as buttermilk and key lime pies. Sugar, egg yolks, sometimes a bit of milk or cream, and flavoring reliably bake into a cross between a curd and custard that lets the sweet maple flavor shine through. This recipe for maple pie is for anyone with a sweet tooth and a love for maple.
Maple syrup snow candy
If there is fresh snow on the ground, making maple syrup snow candy is a great way to pass the time and enjoy a sweet treat. Maple syrup snow candy is made by boiling maple sap past the point where it would form maple syrup, but not so long that it becomes maple butter or sugar, and then cooling it quickly on fresh snow and lifting it with a popsicle stick or metal dinner fork for easy enjoyment. Try making maple syrup snow candy for yourself.
Maple syrup is a delicious Maine treat that can be used in many different ways. Try one of these to bring more maple into your diet and life.
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