Recipes

25 Gluten-Free Thanksgiving Desserts We Can’t Get Enough Of

There’s a decadent world of cakes, ice creams, and cookies beyond your average pie. 
Glutenfree thanksgiving dessert
Photographs by Jenny Huang, food styling by Sue Li, prop styling by Sophie Strangio

While pumpkin pie may always have a place in our hearts, gluten-free guests deserve dessert options too. And when you set the table with these gluten-free Thanksgiving desserts, they’ll have plenty to be grateful for. 

You can keep things simple with chocolate chip cookies (filled with milk and dark chocolate) or get ambitious with a spiced honey cake adorned with luscious cream cheese frosting. Or if your oven is all tied up on Thanksgiving day (that dang turkey), you’ll be happy to know that some of the best gluten-free desserts are also totally no-bake: Serve horchata semifreddo (think easy ice cream), chocolate pudding, or saffron-spiked shrikhand. 

At the end of the day, amazing Thanksgiving desserts don’t need gluten—they just need to taste amazing, look festive, and feed a crowd. As you’ll see in the list below, there’s a decadent world of gluten-free Thanksgiving dessert recipes beyond your average pie.

  • Image may contain Bowl Food Dish Meal and Soup Bowl
    Photo by Alex Lau
    5/25

    Coconut Flan

    We had to have the recipe for the famous flan from Commander's Palace in New Orleans.

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  • Glutenfree thanksgiving dessert
    Photographs by Jenny Huang, food styling by Sue Li, prop styling by Sophie Strangio
    6/25

    Chocolate Buckwheat Cake

    This gluten-free cake is decadent and moist, with a surprising soufflé-like texture.

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  • Image may contain Food Dessert Creme and Cream
    Photo by Emma Fishman
    7/25

    Shrikhand 

    This impossibly smooth, thick, saffron-studded treat is yogurt in its dreamiest, creamiest dessert form.

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  • This image may contain Plant Food Vegetable Produce Pollen Lentil and Bean
    Photo by Alex Lau, food styling by Chris Morocco, prop styling by Emily Eisen
    8/25

    Gluten-Free Carrot Cake

    In this gluten-free, grain-free cake, almond flour makes for a wonderfully sweet, nutty complement for fresh carrots, walnuts, and raisins.

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  • Coconut ChiaTapioca Pudding recipe
    Alex Lau
    9/25

    Coconut Chia-Tapioca Pudding

    If you love the texture of chia pudding, it gets even closer to bubble tea with the addition of tapioca pearls here.

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  • Image may contain Food Dessert Cake Icing Creme and Cream
    Photo by Alex Lau, Food Styling by Susie Theodorou
    10/25

    Heartbeet Chocolate Cake

    Earthy-sweet beet purée gives this gluten-free chocolate cake a red velvet hue but also lends so much buttery moistness that you'd never guess the cake is dairy-free as well. (It's grain-free, too!)

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  • Image may contain Dish Platter Food Meal Pork Dessert and Chocolate
    Photo by Alex Lau, Styling by Sue Li
    19/25

    Gluten-Free Chocolate-Tahini Brownies

    David Lebovitz’s timeless gluten-free brownie recipe inspired our own GF take on classic fudgy brownies with a modern, sweet tahini swirl.

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  • Image may contain Food Dessert Cake Pie and Tart
    Photo by Alex Lau, Styling by Chris Morocco
    20/25

    Gluten-Free Coconut Turmeric Pie

    This recipe is inspired by the flavors found in the traditional Ayurvedic Indian drink haldi doodh, made with milk, turmeric, and honey. It's also gluten- and dairy-free.

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  • Image may contain Accessories Tie Accessory and Purple
    Michael Graydon & Nikole Herriott
    21/25

    Black-and-White Halvah

    Both types of tahini should be roughly the same consistency for this halvah recipe—ideally pretty loose and pourable—which makes it easy to marble them. Most black tahini will be great, but Roland and Whole Foods 365 Organic were the best of the white tahini we tested.

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  • Image may contain Food Creme Ice Cream Dessert Cream Chocolate Plant Confectionery and Sweets
    Gentl & Hyers
    22/25

    Chocolate-Avocado Pudding

    Leave it to cool-kid mecca Gjusta in Venice, CA, to create a produce-based, low-sugar, vegan-friendly, “good”-fat-filled, crowd-pleasing chocolate pudding recipe.

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  • This image may contain Creme Ice Cream Cream Food Dessert Icing Cake Confectionery Sweets and Cupcake
    Laura Murray
    23/25

    Peanut Meringue Cookies

    These naturally gluten-free cookies are made with just five ingredients. For less marshmallow-y meringues, bake at 200º for about 45 minutes with the door slightly ajar.

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  • Alex Lau
    24/25

    Gluten-Free Lemon Bars

    The toasted coconut in the crust lends flavor and texture and complements the curd filling.

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Mehreen Karim was formerly the Recipe Production Assistant at Bon Appétit, where she built recipes and stories for bonappetit.com. She also developed recipes and wrote stories to help readers discover unlikely food combinations (caramelized dates and asparagus) and cooking hacks (how to grill chicken without a grill) to inspire home ... Read More
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