13 Donut Recipes That’ll Make You Rethink Your Dunkin’ Habit

If America had a national breakfast pastry, the donut would take the title, hands down. Who, after all, can refuse the deceptively light consistency and sweet crackle of a glazed donut? Yet donuts remain a rare sight in a home kitchen—a shame, considering they achieve a new state of deliciousness when made from scratch with fresh ingredients and devoured right out of the frying pan. If you’ve never thought about making homemade donuts, these 13 versions just might be enough for you to reconsider.

1. Yeast Donuts

Start with our recipe for yeast donuts, a basic rising dough made with instant yeast and high-gluten bread flour for a pleasantly elastic chew.
Photo and recipe from CHOW

2. Glazed Donuts

Top yeast donuts with a confectioners' sugar glaze that’s impossibly easy to work with, and you’ll never rely on Krispy Kreme to satisfy your fix again.
Photo and recipe from CHOW

3. Jelly Donuts

When you decide to make filled donuts at home, your possibilities suddenly become endless. Bacon jam donuts? Yep, you can make those happen.
Photo and recipe from CHOW

4. Boston Cream Donuts

Sweet dough, chocolate frosting, vanilla custard: With all the components of Boston cream pie in one deep-fried, hand-held treat, the Boston cream donut is even better than the original.
Photo and recipe from CHOW

5. Apple Fritters

What could beat a just-out-of-the-fryer glazed apple fritter? Nothing, except perhaps our just-out-of-the-fryer glazed fritter made with whole sweet-tart Honeycrisp apples.
Photo and recipe from CHOW

6. Shortcut Zeppole

Sometimes you just don’t feel like rising and kneading your own dough from scratch. On those days, follow this simple hack to transform premade pizza dough into zeppole (Italian-style powdered sugar donuts).
Photo and recipe from CHOW

7. Honey Fritters with Blood Oranges

For a deep-fried dessert fix that’s a bit more sophisticated, whip up these fritters, made light in texture thanks to egg whites, and complex in flavor thanks to orange flower water, blood oranges, and orange blossom honey.
Photo and recipe from CHOW

8. Peanut Butter and Jelly Fritters

Keep a ball of store-bought pizza dough on hand for the ultimate pantry dessert: fritters topped with powdered sugar and filled with peanut butter and preserves.
Photo and recipe from CHOW

9. Donut Muffins

If dense cake donuts are more your jam, go for these donut muffins, which are baked before they’re showered with cinnamon sugar.
Photo and recipe from CHOW

10. Leonard’s Malasadas

In Hawaii, the Portuguese-style donuts known as malasadas reign supreme, and there’s no version more beloved than the one from Leonard’s Bakery in Honolulu.
Photo and recipe from Saveur

11. Spiced Churros

Serve churros, Latin America’s answer to donuts, with a classic chocolate and cinnamon sauce for dipping.
Photo and recipe from Food52

12. Sour Cream & Onion Doughnuts

Why limit your relationship with donuts to only recipes with sweet flavor profiles? Use the same deep-fry technique, but try flavoring your donuts with onions and sprinkling them with grated Parmesan cheese for an umami-rich donut experience.
Photo and recipe from The Kitchn

13. Maple Syrup–Soaked Donut Holes

America’s short-lived maple syrup season is approaching. If you can get your hands on a quality regional maple syrup, it’s definitely worth making these maple-drenched donut holes.
Photo and recipe from Bon Appétit

Susannah Chen is a San Francisco–based freelance writer. When she's not cooking or writing, she's on the hunt to find the world's best chilaquiles. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.