When cooking from scratch, fresh is best. Pumpkin puree is an essential ingredient in pumpkin pasta sauce, pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie, and other seasonal recipes. Follow these instructions to make your own homemade pumpkin puree.
Ingredients and Tools
- Pumpkin
- Salt, if desired
- Chef’s knife
- Spoon, preferably grapefruit spoon
- Aluminum foil
And that’s it! Simple, delicious, and healthy.
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.Cover cooking sheet with foil or parchment paper.
On another surface (outside usually is best—it’s a messy process!), use a sharp knife to remove the pumpkin stem.
Cut the pumpkin in half, stem to base.
Use a spoon—a grapefruit spoon works very well—to scrape out the seeds and pulp.
Cover each pumpkin half with foil and place on prepared baking sheet.
Bake in the preheated oven, foil side up, 1-1.5 hours, depending on size of pumpkin, or until tender.
Scrape the pumpkin meat from shell halves with spoon and puree in a blender. Strain to remove any remaining stringy pieces. Add a pinch of salt, if desired.
If you are not using the pumpkin puree immediately, store in the freezer in freezer safe bags.
Looking for ideas on how to use homemade pumpkin puree? We love our cream cheese pumpkin bread recipe.
