15 Fresh Pumpkin Recipes for Fall, From Soup and Stew to Pasta and Pie (2024)

FAQs

What can you do with a whole pumpkin? ›

The easiest and cheapest way to enjoy the fall flavors is to simply roast a whole pumpkin yourself, and it's way simpler than you might think. You can use this pumpkin for soups, curries, or roasted veggie bowls, or blend it to make your own pumpkin puree for pies, muffins, and more!

Queensland Blue Pumpkins

They're incredibly hardy and relatively easy to grow – thriving on compost and providing a high yield when given enough sunlight and space. The QLD blue is perfect in baked dishes and also lends itself really well to boiling, making it great for mashes and soups.

To make pumpkin pie straight from a pumpkin, start by cutting a round cap out of the top of the pumpkin and then scooping out the stringy insides and seeds. Then, cut the remaining pumpkin shell into small cubes or slices and boil them over medium heat until they're soft.

The best type of pumpkin for cooking and baking

It may seem tempting, but I wouldn't recommend cooking with the big pumpkins you normally get at the pumpkin patch. They tend to be very stringy and not flavorful. Instead, I recommend using a pie pumpkin or sugar pumpkin (pictured above).

Puree your pulp on its own and add it to canned pumpkin puree to boost flavor in pumpkin recipes like pumpkin bread. You may also add the puree directly to foods like oatmeal, rice and risotto, hummus and butter—for pumpkin butter.

Pumpkin provides calcium, potassium, and magnesium, which can help keep your heartbeat regular and your blood pressure low.

To help decrease your blood pressure, try eating pumpkin, which contains potassium that helps to control blood pressure. Potassium also helps with bone health and decreases your risk for diabetes. Around 10% of your daily potassium is found in just a half-cup serving of canned pumpkin.

For cooking, you'll want to use sugar pumpkins (also called pie or sweet pumpkins), which are small and round. Long Island Cheese pumpkins, which are more oblong and can look like a wheel of cheese, are also good to eat. Field pumpkin types are larger, have watery, stringy flesh, and are best for decorating.

Start with the right variety of pumpkins, sugar pumpkins. Large pumpkins that we traditionally think of as jack-o-lanterns aren't ideal for pie as they are very stringy and have a lot of seeds. There really isn't very much “meat” to the larger pumpkins. Sugar pumpkins, also known as pie pumpkins, are sweeter.

What are 2 types of pumpkins perfect for pies? ›

Pumpkin Varieties for Cooking

Flesh of carving pumpkins are generally stringy, watery and bland, but can be used for making pies. The best varieties for making pumpkin pies are Baby Bear, Cinderella, Jarrahdale and Fairytale.

Yes, dogs can eat pumpkin and it is actually often added to dog foods. Check the label of some dog treats and you may find pumpkin on the ingredient list there too. However, if you are feeding fresh pumpkin, you will need to be careful about which part you're feeding as the stem and leaves are covered in prickly hairs.

To complement pumpkin with sweet flavor pairings, consider using spices like nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice and vanilla, or sweet ingredients like chocolate, maple, honey, cranberries or brown sugar. Create savory dishes by pairing pumpkin with spices like chilies, cajun, cayenne or pepper.

You can eat all of the pumpkin - except for its stalk. Whether you can eat the skin or not depends on the variety. Smaller varieties such as onion squash have deliciously edible skin, the skin of larger varieties may be too tough to eat or less than appealing.

Pumpkins typically used for jack-o'-lanterns usually are larger, with stringier pulp and more watery flesh. However, you can still eat the jack-o-lantern variety with fairly good results. If you're buying a pumpkin specifically for eating, the smaller ones are usually the best.