The Best Quick and Easy Savory Pumpkin Recipes (2024)

FAQs

What seasonings go well with pumpkin? ›

Pumpkin is notorious for pairing well with warm winter spices – as found in a variety of Moroccan-inspired cuisines. Try incorporating cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, cumin and chilli with your pumpkin dishes for flavour-packed feasts.

For even more flavor, you can add spices (like the celebrated pumpkin pie spice!) to the purée during the cooking step. Heating spices “blooms” them, releasing their flavorful, fragrant oils.

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.

Pumpkin, roasted with olive oil, rosemary, salt and pepper, can taste like fall in your mouth, but in the way that says, “I'm fancier than that latte.” Cumin is like a flavor cousin to cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger, which means that it's also absolutely delicious with pumpkin.

Cook It on the Stove

Briefly cooking your canned pumpkin purée on the stove can help improve both the flavor and texture. This method helps reduce excess moisture, which gives the pumpkin a superior texture. It also releases the natural pumpkin flavor and helps reduce the metallic taste from the can.

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.

Properly Cured Pumpkins

Making homemade pumpkin puree with a pumpkin that hasn't been fully cured will give you an almost bitter-tasting puree. It's really worth it to be sure the pumpkins have been cured long enough.

Pureed, baked or roasted pumpkin is a nutrient-dense food that is low in calories and fat while being high in fiber, helping you feel full for longer.

The best type of pumpkin for cooking and baking

Instead, I recommend using a pie pumpkin or sugar pumpkin (pictured above). During the fall and winter seasons, most stores will have them available. Try to pick pumpkins between 3-6 pounds — that's usually when the flesh is best.

What fruit tastes like pumpkin? ›

Although it originated in Southern Mexico, the mamey sapote (Pouteria sapota) is beloved in tropical areas across the world, especially in the Caribbean. Eaten fresh, the orange-fleshed fruit has a taste that some compare to a brown sugar-covered sweet potato, with notes of pumpkin, caramel and cantaloupe.

Skeleton Pumpkin

Stack a couple of pumpkins on top of each other after removing the stem from the bottom one. Spray paint both white and paint on black circles and ovals to create a skeleton face and bones.

Pumpkins are planted in early May through June and harvested in the fall months. Pumpkins are a type of winter squash with smooth, slightly ribbed orange skin.

Every year around early September is the unofficial start of “pumpkin season.” You know, the time when brands trot out pumpkin-flavored everything, from desserts to hummus to yogurt to coffee to, I kid you not – pumpkin scented trash bags.

I like my homemade pumpkin pie spice to be heavy on the cinnamon and ginger, with just a little kick from allspice and cloves.

Ingredient #6: Pumpkin Spice Topping

The pretty dusting that settles into the whipped cream is actually fairly simple—so simple, in fact, you could make it at home! It's a blend of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves that contributes to the delicious spiced pumpkin aroma.