Our best vintage recipes to make every month of 2026

Straight from spiral-bound cookbooks and stained recipe cards

Although our Test Kitchen is always dreaming up new appetizers, weeknight meals, and more, we still turn to some of our favorite vintage recipes from time to time. From old Southern Living cookbooks to butter-stained recipe cards passed down over the years, we find cooking inspiration in all sorts of retro recipes. Not all old-school recipes stand the test of time, but the dozen we have collected here are some of our favorites, and are well worth revisiting in 2026.

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January: Hot Pants Chili

How can you resist trying a recipe with a name like Hot Pants Chili? This Texas-style chili (i.e. no beans) gets its name from the recipe that won the 1974 World Championship Chili Cookoff. That year, Allegani Jani Schofield became the first woman to win the contest with her chili that included both masa and mole paste.

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February: Chocolate Velvets

This recipe comes from our 1984 archives. The easy homemade truffles come together in a food processor, and are flavored with a splash of creme de cacao or Kahlua.

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March: Shaker Lemon Pie

The Charleston, West Virginia Junior League included this Shaker Lemon Pie in its 1974 Mountain Measures cookbook, and it's been a favorite of ours ever since. Shaker cooks considered lemons an important part of a healthy diet, and so they created this pie that uses every bit of the fruit (rind included).

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April: Rosalynn Carter's Pimiento Cheese

First Lady Rosalynn Carter is remembered by her eldest grandson Jason Carter for many things, among them though is for making her famous pimiento cheese. She would take a Tupperware full of the spread on plane trips, assembling sandwiches for both her family and strangers mid-flight.

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May: Austin Leslie's Confetti Chicken

Chef Austin Leslie cooked in celebrated eateries such as Jacques-Imo’s and Pampy’s Creole Kitchen in New Orleans. But he was probably best known as the chef at Chez Hélène, the Creole restaurant started by his aunt, who sold it to him in 1975. His famous fried chicken recipe, topped with a “confetti” of garlic and parsley and served with dill pickle slices, is among our favorite takes on the classic Southern dish.

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June: Katie Salad

This recipe is writer Stephanie Ganz's ode to the classic salad found at Mac & Bob’s in Salem, Virginia. She writes that, "I grew up looking forward to family dinners at Mac & Bob’s, where I’d unfailingly get the Kendall Zone (a smaller version of a calzone) and my stepmom, Ginger, would always order this delightful salad. Since moving away from the area, I’ve created my own version to satisfy my cravings, but I always like making a pilgrimage to Mac & Bob’s for the original when I’m visiting my hometown, neighboring Roanoke, Virginia."

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July: Mary Randolph's 'Ochra Soup'

Okra soup is a Lowcountry staple, and one of the best versions of the dish comes from Mary Randolph’s classic 1860 cookbook, The Virginia Housewife. It simmers fresh okra with beef and other late-summer vegetables, like tomatoes, lima beans, and squash, until it falls apart, yielding a rich, hearty soup.

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August: Frozen Fruit Salad

This frozen retro dessert was once considered a "dietetic" dish, a refreshing and light sweet treat for the ladies who lunch crowd. We love that the easy treat uses nostalgic favorites like canned fruit cocktail to make a fuss-free dessert that tastes like frozen ambrosia salad.

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September: Sour Cream Apple Pie

This treasured family recipe comes from Beverly Thompson of Willis, Texas. "I lost my mom, Neddy Nokes, six years ago. I make this pie when I am missing her. For as long as I can remember, this was her go-to dessert for holidays, bridge games, and my birthday. I never felt my copies of the pie were as good as hers. Cooking was my mother’s love language, and it was such a big deal for her to share the recipe with me. I love that it’s her handwriting on the recipe card that I still use to this day," she writes.

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October: Edna Lewis’ Greens

The queen of Southern cooking never misses, and that's especially true with these simple cooked greens. Simmered in an easy pork broth made of water, pork, salt, and pepper, these greens are cooked until just tender but still have a good bit of bite left to them—setting them apart from other traditional recipes.

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November: Tee's Corn Pudding

The ultimate creamed corn, this in-demand recipe has run in our magazine more than 10 times after its debut in 1995. We like to add chopped fresh chives on top to fancy it up.

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December: Christmas Relish Tree

Straight from the pages of our 1984 holiday issue, this Relish Tree is as much a crafting project as it is a vintage recipe, and even features radish roses as decor (when's the last time you've seen one of those?).