diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
index 0988b9e053..362fc2ef34 100644
--- a/NEWS.md
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -96,6 +96,8 @@
 
 * Fixed a LaTeX bug where some characters following a `\midrule` would corrupt the table (#145, #391, #1107, #1182). (#1390)
 
+* Provided a rendering fallback for HTML tables rendered in Quarto where the combination of `fmt_markdown()` and `tab_options(quarto.disable_processing = TRUE)` would incorrectly result in empty cells. (#1455)
+
 * A issue associated with a lack of HTML formatting within interactive tables has been fixed (#1299, #1370, #1384, #1443). (#1388)
 
 * Many user-facing error messages have been enhanced using the latest features from the **cli** package. (#1337, thanks @olivroy!)
diff --git a/R/utils.R b/R/utils.R
index 32504f8cd0..c113a6a489 100644
--- a/R/utils.R
+++ b/R/utils.R
@@ -757,8 +757,24 @@ md_to_html <- function(x, md_engine) {
 
     non_na_x <- x[!is.na(x)]
 
-    non_na_x <- tidy_gsub(non_na_x, "^", "<span data-qmd=\"")
-    non_na_x <- tidy_gsub(non_na_x, "$", "\"></span>")
+    non_na_x_processed <-
+      vapply(
+        as.character(x[!is.na(x)]),
+        FUN.VALUE = character(1),
+        USE.NAMES = FALSE,
+        FUN = function(x) {
+          md_engine_fn[[1]](text = x)
+        }
+      )
+
+    non_na_x <- tidy_gsub(non_na_x, "^", "<div data-qmd=\"")
+    non_na_x <- tidy_gsub(non_na_x, "$", "\">")
+
+    non_na_x <-
+      paste0(
+        non_na_x, "<div class='gt_from_md'>",
+        non_na_x_processed, "</div></div>"
+      )
 
     #nocov end
   }