Autumn barely registers in the Islands — no red leaves, no scarf weather — but that hasn't stopped locals from leaning into the season anyway. Hawaiʻi Magazine has rounded up its eight favourite fall recipes, and the list doubles as a tasty tour of the state's layered food history: Portuguese, Puerto Rican, Japanese and local plate-lunch traditions all show up on one menu.
The savoury anchors are two one-pot classics. Pastele stew, shared via a recipe from Maui chef Sheldon Simeon's cookbook ʻOhana Style, comes from the Puerto Rican families whose pasteles became a local staple — a warming stew that suits the islands' briefly cooler evenings. Portuguese bean soup is its counterpart, another immigrant gift that stuck, served everywhere from church festivals to restaurants year-round (the malasada's savoury sibling, essentially). For something in between, there's a shrimp and butternut squash risotto, with a swap for kabocha — the sweet Japanese winter squash that's in season in Hawaiʻi right now.
Then come the pies, which is clearly where the magazine's heart is. Hawaiʻi-style pumpkin crunch is described as one of its most popular recipes ever, and there's also a pumpkin custard pie riffing on the silky custard pies you'll spot in local bakeries. The most local twist is pumpkin-haupia pie: haupia, the coconut-milk gelatin dessert that shows up at lūʻau and alongside plate lunches, layered under the holiday flavour — chocolate-haupia is the usual favourite, but pumpkin holds its own. Rounding things out is kabocha pie, which skips the can of pumpkin purée for fresh Japanese squash. More prep, but a creamier result.
There's even a drink: the Hocus Pocus cocktail, made with whiskey from Oʻahu's Koʻolau Distillery and built on warm fall notes of star anise and pumpkin — an evening companion to the pumpkin spice latte that Hawaiians apparently love as much as anyone on the mainland.
Why should a traveller care? Because the best souvenir from Hawaiʻi is often a recipe you can't find anywhere else, and this list is full of dishes most visitors never encounter beyond a bakery window or a church fundraiser. If you're in the Islands this autumn, use it as an eating checklist: hunt down Portuguese bean soup at a local event, order haupia pie wherever bakeries sell it, and look for kabocha on fall menus. And if you're already home and missing the place, the recipes work anywhere — that's the whole point of the roundup.
