There comes a point in autumn when supper needs to change.
Salads begin to look rather optimistic. The evenings arrive before we’re quite ready for them, the windows mist up while dinner is cooking and suddenly anything served from a deep bowl seems infinitely more appealing.
This is pumpkin’s moment.
Sweet, earthy and wonderfully accommodating, pumpkin can become a velvety soup one evening and a warming curry the next. Roast it until the edges caramelise, stir it slowly into risotto, blend it into a pasta sauce or, when supper has been dealt with, put it into a cake.
Because pumpkin deserves better than spending its entire existence pretending to be a lantern.
These six easy pumpkin recipes are designed for proper autumn evenings: uncomplicated ingredients, generous portions and food you’ll actually want to cook again.
Put the kettle on.
We have a pumpkin to deal with.
Which pumpkin is best for cooking?
Before we start chopping, a small word about choosing your pumpkin.
Not all pumpkins taste the same.
Large pumpkins grown primarily for Halloween carving are generally edible when fresh and sold for that purpose, but their flesh can be comparatively mild and watery. Smaller culinary pumpkins and winter squashes often have denser, sweeter and more flavoursome flesh.
Varieties such as Crown Prince, Uchiki Kuri and butternut squash are particularly useful in the kitchen, although there are many excellent culinary varieties to explore.
If you’re using the flesh from a fresh carving pumpkin, roasting it first can help concentrate its flavour.
And if the pumpkin has already been carved and spent several days sitting on the doorstep?
That one isn’t dinner.
Use fresh flesh you’ve removed before carving.
With that settled, let’s cook.
1. Roasted pumpkin and garlic soup
There are quicker ways to make pumpkin soup.
But roasting the vegetables first is worth the extra time.
The heat concentrates the pumpkin’s sweetness, caramelises the edges and turns the garlic soft and mellow. The result tastes considerably more interesting than its short ingredients list would suggest.
Roasted pumpkin and garlic soup
Serves 4–6
You’ll need:
- 1kg pumpkin flesh, cut into chunks
- 1 large onion, cut into wedges
- 2 carrots, roughly chopped
- 4 garlic cloves, unpeeled
- 2 tbsp olive or rapeseed oil
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- ½ tsp ground ginger
- 750ml vegetable stock, plus extra if needed
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 2 tbsp crème fraîche or double cream, optional
- Pumpkin seeds, to serve, optional
Heat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan/Gas 6.
Put the pumpkin, onion and carrots into a large roasting tin.
Drizzle over the oil, sprinkle with the cumin and ginger and season with salt and pepper. Toss everything together.
Add the unpeeled garlic cloves to the tin.
Roast for 35–45 minutes, turning the vegetables halfway through, until the pumpkin is completely tender and beginning to caramelise.
Squeeze the soft garlic from its skins.
Transfer everything to a large saucepan, add the vegetable stock and bring to a gentle simmer for about 5 minutes.
Blend until smooth.
If the soup is thicker than you’d like, add a little more stock. Taste and adjust the seasoning.
Ladle into bowls and finish with crème fraîche, cream or roasted pumpkin seeds if you fancy them.
Add thick slices of bread.
This isn’t technically compulsory.
It merely feels that way.
2. Maple, sage and garlic roasted pumpkin
Roasted pumpkin is one of those dishes that can quietly become half the meal.
Serve it alongside a Sunday roast, spoon it over lentils, add it to an autumn salad or pile it onto a plate with crumbled cheese and toasted nuts.
The important thing is giving the pumpkin enough room in the roasting tin.
Crowd the pieces together and they’ll steam.
Give them space and the edges become wonderfully caramelised.
Maple, sage and garlic roasted pumpkin
Serves 4 as a side dish
You’ll need:
- 800g pumpkin or winter squash
- 2 tbsp olive or rapeseed oil
- 1 tbsp maple syrup
- 2 garlic cloves, finely sliced
- 8 fresh sage leaves
- ½ tsp sea salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 40g walnuts or hazelnuts, roughly chopped, optional
Heat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan/Gas 6.
Cut the pumpkin into wedges or chunky pieces. Remove the seeds and stringy centre.
Whether you need to peel it depends on the variety. Some squash skins soften beautifully during roasting; tougher pumpkin skins are better removed.
Put the pumpkin into a large roasting tin.
Mix the oil and maple syrup together, pour over the pumpkin and add the garlic, sage, salt and plenty of black pepper.
Toss everything together, then arrange the pumpkin in a single layer.
Roast for 30–40 minutes, turning once, until tender and caramelised around the edges.
If you’re adding nuts, scatter them over for the final 8–10 minutes.
Serve immediately.
The crispy sage leaves may disappear before the dish reaches the table.
No investigation is necessary.
3. Creamy pumpkin and sage risotto
Risotto has acquired an unfortunate reputation for requiring someone to stand over the saucepan looking concerned for 40 minutes.
It really isn’t that dramatic.
It does need attention, certainly. But that’s part of its charm on a cold evening.
Pour a drink, find a wooden spoon and accept that you’re staying near the cooker for a while.
Pumpkin and sage risotto
Serves 4
You’ll need:
- 500g pumpkin flesh, cut into small cubes
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 litre vegetable stock
- 25g butter
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 300g risotto rice
- 100ml dry white wine, optional
- 8 fresh sage leaves, finely sliced
- 50g finely grated Parmesan or vegetarian hard cheese
- 25g butter, to finish
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Heat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan/Gas 6.
Toss the pumpkin with the olive oil and a little seasoning. Roast for 25–30 minutes until tender and lightly caramelised.
Meanwhile, warm the stock in a saucepan and keep it at a gentle simmer.
Melt the first 25g butter in a large heavy-based pan.
Add the onion and cook gently for 8–10 minutes until soft but not browned. Add the garlic and sage and cook for another minute.
Stir in the rice and cook for a minute or two until the grains are glossy.
Add the wine, if using, and allow it to bubble until mostly absorbed.
Begin adding the warm stock a ladleful at a time, stirring regularly and waiting until most of the liquid has been absorbed before adding more.
Continue for around 18–25 minutes, depending on the rice, until it is tender but still has a little bite.
You may not need every drop of stock.
Mash roughly half the roasted pumpkin and stir it through the risotto. Fold in the remaining chunks.
Remove from the heat and stir in the cheese and remaining 25g butter.
Cover and leave for 2 minutes before serving.
The finished risotto should be loose and creamy rather than sitting on the plate like a scoop of mashed potato.
Finish with black pepper and a little extra cheese.
Then eat immediately.
Risotto waits for nobody.
4. Easy pumpkin, chickpea and coconut curry
Pumpkin and curry are extremely good friends.
The pumpkin softens and absorbs the spices, while coconut milk gives the sauce richness without requiring hours of cooking.
Chickpeas make this substantial enough for dinner, and spinach provides a final flash of green that allows everyone to feel exceptionally organised.
Pumpkin, chickpea and coconut curry
Serves 4
You’ll need:
- 1 tbsp vegetable or rapeseed oil
- 1 large onion, finely chopped
- 3 garlic cloves, crushed
- 20g fresh ginger, finely grated
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- 1 tsp turmeric
- ½–1 tsp chilli flakes, to taste
- 600g pumpkin flesh, cut into 2–3cm cubes
- 400g tin chopped tomatoes
- 400ml tin coconut milk
- 400g tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- 100g baby spinach
- ½ lime
- Salt
- Fresh coriander, optional
- Cooked basmati rice, to serve
Heat the oil in a large saucepan over a medium-low heat.
Add the onion and cook for 8–10 minutes until soft.
Stir in the garlic and ginger and cook for another minute.
Add the cumin, coriander, turmeric and chilli. Stir for about 30 seconds until fragrant.
Add the pumpkin and turn it through the spices.
Pour in the tomatoes and coconut milk, then add the chickpeas.
Bring everything to a gentle simmer.
Partially cover and cook for 20–30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the pumpkin is tender. The exact time will depend on the variety and size of your pieces.
If the sauce becomes too thick before the pumpkin is cooked, add a splash of water.
Stir through the spinach and cook until wilted.
Squeeze over the lime juice, season to taste and scatter with coriander if using.
Serve with basmati rice.
Any leftovers are excellent the following day, when the spices have had a little more time to become acquainted.
5. Creamy pumpkin, garlic and sage pasta
This is the recipe for the evening when you want something comforting but have no desire to embark upon a major culinary project.
Roasted pumpkin becomes the basis of a smooth sauce, sage provides the unmistakable taste of autumn and pasta takes care of everything else.
Creamy pumpkin pasta
Serves 4
You’ll need:
- 500g pumpkin flesh, cut into chunks
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 300g dried pasta
- 25g butter
- 8 fresh sage leaves
- 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 200g cooked pumpkin or pumpkin purée
- 100ml vegetable stock
- 100ml crème fraîche
- 50g grated Parmesan or vegetarian hard cheese
- A pinch of ground nutmeg
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 30g toasted walnuts, optional
If starting with raw pumpkin, heat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan/Gas 6.
Toss the pumpkin with the olive oil and roast for 25–35 minutes until completely tender.
Measure out roughly 200g of the cooked pumpkin for the sauce. Any remainder can be folded through the pasta in chunks or saved for another recipe.
Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and cook the pasta according to the packet instructions.
Before draining, reserve a mugful of the pasta water.
Meanwhile, melt the butter in a large frying pan.
Add the sage and cook briefly until fragrant and beginning to crisp. Remove a few leaves and keep them for serving.
Add the garlic and cook gently for about 30 seconds.
Stir in the pumpkin and vegetable stock, then mash with a spoon or blend if you’d like a completely smooth sauce.
Stir through the crème fraîche, cheese and nutmeg.
Add the drained pasta and toss everything together.
If the sauce seems too thick, add some reserved pasta water a little at a time until it becomes silky and coats the pasta.
Season generously with black pepper.
Serve with the reserved sage leaves, toasted walnuts if using and a little extra cheese.
It’s essentially autumn in a bowl.
Only with considerably more Parmesan.
6. Pumpkin, ginger and cinnamon loaf cake
Pumpkin doesn’t have to spend its entire culinary career in savoury dishes.
Cooked pumpkin purée adds moisture to cakes without giving them an overwhelmingly pumpkin-like flavour. Add ginger and cinnamon and you get something much more interesting: a softly spiced autumn loaf that works with afternoon tea, coffee or the excuse that you’ve already cut a slice so you might as well eat it.
Pumpkin, ginger and cinnamon loaf cake
Serves 8–10
You’ll need:
- 200g pumpkin purée
- 175g light brown sugar
- 125ml vegetable or rapeseed oil
- 2 large eggs
- 200g plain flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 2 tsp ground ginger
- 1½ tsp ground cinnamon
- ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
- A pinch of salt
- 50g chopped walnuts or pecans, optional
For the simple topping:
- 100g full-fat cream cheese
- 40g icing sugar
- Finely grated zest of ½ orange
Heat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan/Gas 4.
Grease and line a 900g loaf tin.
Put the pumpkin purée, brown sugar, oil and eggs into a large bowl and whisk until combined.
In another bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt.
Fold the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just combined.
Fold through the nuts if using.
Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and level the top.
Bake for around 45–55 minutes, or until risen and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
Leave in the tin for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
For the topping, beat the cream cheese and icing sugar together until smooth, then stir through the orange zest.
Spread over the completely cooled cake.
The word completely matters.
Cream cheese icing on a warm cake has an alarming tendency to make a bid for freedom.
Slice and serve with tea.
Preferably while rain is doing something atmospheric against the window.
How to make pumpkin purée
Several pumpkin recipes call for purée, and making your own is straightforward.
Cut a culinary pumpkin or squash into large wedges and remove the seeds and stringy centre.
Roast at 200°C/180°C fan/Gas 6 until the flesh is completely tender. Depending on the size and variety, this will usually take around 30–50 minutes.
Allow it to cool enough to handle, remove any tough skin and blend the flesh until smooth.
Different pumpkin varieties contain different amounts of water. If your purée is very wet, leave it in a sieve over a bowl for a while so some excess liquid can drain away.
That’s particularly useful when you’re planning to bake with it.
Soup is forgiving.
Cake has standards.
Don’t throw away the pumpkin seeds
If you’ve bought a whole pumpkin, the recipes don’t have to end with the flesh.
Separate the seeds from the stringy centre, wash them and dry them thoroughly.
Toss with a little oil and salt, then roast at 180°C/160°C fan/Gas 4 for roughly 10–20 minutes, checking and stirring as they cook.
Add smoked paprika, cumin or chilli for savoury seeds, or a little cinnamon for something warmer and sweeter.
Scatter them over your pumpkin soup or curry, add them to salads or eat them straight from the tray.
If they make it as far as the table, you’ve shown admirable restraint.
What can I make with leftover cooked pumpkin?
A small amount of leftover pumpkin is remarkably easy to use.
Mash roasted pumpkin into potatoes. Stir it through risotto. Add it to soup. Blend it into pasta sauce or curry.
A spoonful of pumpkin purée can go into porridge, while larger quantities can become cakes and muffins.
If you know you won’t use cooked pumpkin promptly, freeze it in sensible portions.
This is particularly useful after dealing with a large pumpkin, when enthusiasm tends to fade somewhere around the third consecutive pumpkin-based meal.
Can you use a Halloween pumpkin for cooking?
A fresh pumpkin sold as edible can be cooked, including many pumpkins intended primarily for carving.
The important word is fresh.
If you’re carving a pumpkin for Halloween, remove any clean flesh and seeds you want to eat before the pumpkin becomes a lantern. Refrigerate the edible portions promptly.
Don’t cook with a carved pumpkin that has subsequently spent hours or days sitting at room temperature or outside.
Once it has been on doorstep duty, let it remain a decoration.
Soup shouldn’t begin with the phrase, “It was outside all weekend, but…”
Pumpkin, squash or both?
You can use winter squash in many recipes that call for pumpkin.
In fact, depending on what’s available, a flavoursome winter squash may produce an even better result.
Butternut squash is widely available and easy to cook with. Crown Prince has dense, sweet flesh, while Uchiki Kuri – sometimes sold as red kuri – has a rich, slightly nutty character.
The precise cooking time may change because varieties differ in moisture and density, so treat the timings in recipes as a guide and check the flesh with the point of a knife.
When it’s tender, it’s ready.
The pumpkin doesn’t own a stopwatch.
One pumpkin, six autumn suppers
Perhaps the best thing about cooking with pumpkin is how easily it changes character.
Roasted with sage, it becomes a side dish.
Blended with garlic, it’s soup.
Stir it patiently into rice and you have risotto. Add coconut milk and spices and supper heads in an entirely different direction. Blend it with cheese for pasta, then save enough purée to make cake.
That’s quite a performance from something that spends much of October sitting decoratively beside front doors.
So when pumpkins begin appearing in gardens, markets and farm shops this autumn, don’t think only of lanterns.
Think soup.
Think curry.
Think risotto.
Think cake.
And if you’ve bought an especially large pumpkin, think freezer.
Because autumn evenings are short.
There should always be time for pudding.
Further Reading: My Garden Journal & Notes
