5 best pumpkin spice foods of the season

Oatmeal

Pumpkin. Spice. Is. Really. Just. Nice. Spice. We can’t say it enough and we mean it as no slight. It’s simply to say that while you might turn up your nose at adding pumpkin to your oatmeal, you basically have to add spices to oatmeal to make it remotely palatable.

Think about how you might make homemade oatmeal, were you so inclined. You could cook the oats with the liquid of your choice and then you stir in some flavor. What do you mostly stir in? Spices. Do you enjoy Cinnamon & Spice instant oatmeal? Awesome. You will probably enjoy pumpkin spice oatmeal.

Cookies

Just about every mass produced cookie brand mass produces a pumpkin spice variation. Some to great effect, some to the effect of pure trash. It all depends on to what degree the original cookie can benefit from cinnamon, nutmeg and the like. For example, absolutely no one wants cinnamon spice cream in an Oreo. But you might happily welcome spices into a sugar cookie or shortbread-based delight.

Here, too, it’s essential to carefully read the flavor. Cookies that stand to benefit from pumpkin spice (fall spices! again! spices!) are not necessarily the same cookies that would compliment pumpkin (pumpkin! it’s like squash!). But tread carefully through the pumpkin spice cookie aisle and you can find some of the very best of the trend.

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And that’s the key to navigating the minefield of pumpkin spice products. Read the flavors details, know what you’re getting into. The pumpkin pie spice blend compliments a lot of foods — particularly desserts. Pumpkin, too, works well as flavor to a range of dishes. But they’re not totally interchangeable and they’re not always totally necessary.

So do your shopping with a grain of salt — or perhaps, a grain of pumpkin spice.