The cuisine of New England is an American cuisine which originated in the New England region of the United States, and traces its roots to traditional English cuisine and Native American cuisine of the Abenaki, Narragansett, Niantic, Wabanaki, Wampanoag, and other native peoples. It also includes influences from Irish, French-Canadian, Italian, and Portuguese cuisine, among others. It is characterized by extensive use of potatoes, beans, dairy products and seafood, resulting from its historical reliance on its seaports and fishing industry. Corn, the major crop historically grown by Native American tribes in New England, continues to be grown in all New England states, primarily as sweet corn although flint corn is grown as well. It is traditionally used in hasty puddings, cornbreads and corn chowders.

Many of New England's earliest Puritan settlers were from eastern England, where baking foods (for instance, pies, beans, and turkey) was more common than frying, as was the tradition elsewhere.

Three prominent characteristic foodstuffs native to New England are maple syrup, cranberries and blueberries. The traditional standard starch is potato, though rice has a somewhat increased popularity in modern cooking. Traditional New England cuisine is known for a lack of strong spices, which is because of local 19th century health reformers, most prominently Sylvester Graham, who advocated eating bland food. Ground black pepper, parsley, garlic, and sage are common, with a few Caribbean additions such as nutmeg, plus several Italian spices.

The use of cream is common, due to the reliance on dairy. The favored cooking techniques are stewing, steaming, and baking. Many local ingredients, such as squash, corn and local beans, sunflowers, wild turkey, maple syrup, cranberries and dishes such as cornbread, Johnnycakes and Indian pudding were adopted from Native American cuisine.

The traditional diet of the Wampanoag Indians included chestnuts, beechnuts, walnuts, beans, multi-colored corn (called "flint corn"), and varieties of squash and pumpkins. Not strictly vegetarian, the traditional diet of the Wabanaki people is plant-centric and based on corn, beans, squash, sunflower seeds, sunchokes and groundcherries. The Wabanaki tribal nations did make plant milk and infant formula from nuts.

In 1620, the newly arrived Pilgrims faced the prospect of surviving their first winter in Plymouth Colony. The climate was harsh and the growing season was shorter than they were accustomed to due to the long and frosty winters. The newly arrived colonists brought vital techniques of food preservation like smoking, curing and drying that helped them survive the harsh New England winter. They also received help from the Wampanoag, who taught the newly arrived Pilgrims how to grow the staple crops of squash, beans and corn. It is not known for certain what crops were grown in early colonial gardens, but later sources mention turnips, onions, carrots, garlic and pumpkins.

The Pilgrims used corn to make hasty pudding and Wampanoag recipes like popcorn, sagamite and nasaump. The Wampanoag Indians also taught the Pilgrims to bake in hot ashes, and ash cakes (also called johnny cakes or breakfast bannocks) became a staple breakfast bread. Beans were used to make stews or combined with corn to make succotash.

Many of Massachusetts Bay's earliest Puritan settlers were from eastern England and brought the traditions of English cuisine with them. Puritans typically avoided much of the food native to New England (such as oysters, lobsters, salmon, and plants like glasswort and fiddleheads) unless driven to starvation. Roast duck, goose, lamb, and hams were brought as farmyard stock as soon as the colonies began to prosper. One typical dish of the Puritans was boiled dinner: a meal where the meat and vegetables were boiled simultaneously in the same pot (a unique method inherited from Eastern England). Another dish was pease porridge, a meal of "boiled or baked" split peas cooked with herbs and bacon that was eaten both warm or cold. Dark beer and fermented apple cider were often drank alongside the settlers' meals.