How to Cook Fresh Pumpkin

Making Homemade Pumpkin Puree and Preserving the Stems

Every Fall pumpkin everything explodes onto the scene. Whether it’s pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin decor, or pumpkin desserts made with pumpkin puree. Real canned pumpkin can be very expensive, especially when compared to the cost of homemade pumpkin puree. Have you ever thought about how to cook fresh pumpkins and make your own pumpkin puree from scratch? Using homemade pumpkin puree is not only cheaper than canned pumpkin, it gives your desserts a milder fresher flavor. Pumpkin freezes easily to use later, as a bonus you can preserve those real pumpkin stems for crafts, I will share how later in the post.

I called around to the organic gardens and asked if I could come and get several small pie pumpkins with long natural stems.  They cut the stems extra long for me. Aren’t they lovely?

Pumpkin Puree Recipe – Great for Pie and Other Pumpkin Recipes

Pumpkin puree is the inside of the pumpkin that’s been baked, then blended or mashed to create a smooth puree. Homemade pumpkin purée can replace canned pumpkin in any of your favorite pumpkin recipes. Swap it out a cup for cup. Fresh pumpkin puree tastes fresher and lighter than its commercially canned cousin.

Fresh pumpkin is very easy to prepare into pureed pumpkin to freeze.

I prefer the flavor of classic pumpkin pie made with homemade pumpkin puree, and one or two small pie pumpkins will provide you with all the pumpkin you need for a large pumpkin pie. I used five small organic pie pumpkins for this post as I want to freeze the extra, but you may not want that much pumpkin on hand.

Choosing Fresh Pumpkins

Begin by choosing the right type of pumpkin, if available. A pie pumpkin or a sugar pumpkin are the best pumpkins for eating. Regular pumpkins have more moisture and are less sweet.

If you are unable to find a sugar or pie pumpkin at the grocery store or farmers market go ahead and use any smaller pumpkins. If all you have is the jack-o-lantern pumpkins use them. The big pumpkins are a little bit more work than the smaller ones, but the final product works well. (I didn’t even know about sugar pumpkins until ten years ago and everyone raved about my pumpkin pies.)

If you have a garden you can easily grow your own pie pumpkins. Since moving and getting our own garden I have found pie pumpkin varieties easy to buy at the local nursery, and they grow well.

Choose a ripe pumpkin that has no green showing. If you have a green pumpkin, place it in a nice dry spot outside with the green part facing the sun.

Equipment Needed

Besides the pumpkin, you need a few simple everyday items you likely have on hand.

How to Cook Fresh Pumpkin for Pumpkin Puree

My pumpkin puree recipe is a very easy recipe with only one ingredient. Fresh pumpkins. We have to start by preparing our whole pumpkin.

Remove the Stems

Wash the pumpkins really well.  Be careful, pumpkin stems are surprisingly pricklish, protect your hands with gloves or a towel when handling them.

Cut the stems off the top and set aside, to preserve afterwards. The stems are great for crafting pumpkins.

Cut the whole pumpkin(s) in half.

Homemade Pumpkin Puree Recipe

Clean Out the Pumpkin

The easiest way to remove pumpkin seeds is with an ice cream scoop. This will save you so much time and keep your hands cleaner. Remove all the stringy stuff you find inside the pumpkin and toss it aside. Once your pumpkins are clean and free of both seeds and stringy bits, cut them into smaller pieces

Lay the pumpkin pieces open side up on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F, once up to temp roast your pumpkins for about 45 minutes until the flesh of the pumpkin is soft and easy to pierce with a fork.

Once baked, remove from the oven a let the pumpkin cool a little bit.

Lay the pumpkins open side up on a baking pan.  Set the oven at 350 F and once up to temp roast your pumpkins for about 45 minutes until the flesh is soft and easy to pierce with a fork.

Remove from the oven and let cool a little bit.

Even after baking the outer casing of the pumpkin is quite strong and hard. Scoop the cooked pumpkin flesh out with a large spoon into a food processor, or if you don’t have one, mash the pumpkin really well instead, until the pumpkin is smooth.

In the above image, I hope you can notice that the pumpkin is watery at this stage.

To remove the excess water and thicken your pumpkin puree, place the pumpkin into a fine mesh strainer over a bowl in the sink. Grab a large wooden spoon and a coffee. Sip away relaxing while your pumpkin drains off the excess water. Occasionally help the process along by pushing the pumpkin with either a potato masher or the back or a large wooden spoon. You can save the excess liquid for soup or animals, but I discard mine.

How to Store and Freeze Pumpkin Puree

If using the homemade puree right away, you can store it covered in a plastic container for up to a week. If you keep it that long the pumpkin may turn a bit watery, just pour the juice off and stir your pumpkin before using it.

As most recipes ask for 2 cups of pumpkin I freeze my pumpkin in 2 cup portions. Measure each portion into a small freeze bag, mark the date on the freezer bags, lay each bag flat, and freeze.

Frozen pumpkin puree can be kept in the freezer for 3 to 6 months. Certainly long enough for pumpkin spice season, some recipes say it can keep up to a year.

To thaw pumpkin puree, I like to place it in a bowl of cold water for 10 to 15 minutes. Or you can place the bag of pumpkin in a bowl in the fridge the night before to thaw.

Preserve the Pumpkin Stems

One of the awesome perks of learning how to cook fresh pumpkin, is that you get to save those lovely pumpkin stems for Fall crafting.

With a very sharp knife cut out the pumpkin stem from the top slice of the pumpkin.

Once the stem is removed hold it in a cloth-covered hand (pumpkin stems are prickly) and carefully peel off any of the remaining pumpkins.

Place your pumpkin stems in a cool dark place until they are completely dried, it will take about 8 weeks.  Once dry you can use a fine sandpaper to remove the prickles and any little dried bits of pumpkin off the stem. h

Once the stems are dry you can place them in a plastic container for the next year.

Oven Drying Pumpkin Stems

If you want to use your pumpkin stems right away, you can dry them in the oven. Just place them on a parchment lined cookie sheet and bake them for 2-3 hours at a low temperature. Your stems will change colour which doesn’t matter as we usually paint them. They will also be lighter. I prefer to just dry mine naturally, but sometimes you just forget to plan ahead.

Hubs was home when I made the pumpkin puree.   You may have noticed the amount of pumpkin puree ready for freezing in the picture was small.  He asked for a pie so I made that and the rest of the pumpkin puree I will bag and freeze it tomorrow.   In total, I got 20 cups of preserved pumpkin.

Related Posts

Fresh pumpkin is wonderful for any pumpkin recipe, you can substitute fresh pumpkin for canned pumpkin cup for cup in any recipe you like.

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Or try these soft and chewy Pumpkin Sugar Cookies.

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The real preserved pumpkin stems are the nicest stems for DIY fabric pumpkins of any style, but I made my stems into these high end copycat Velvet Pumpkins with Real Pumpkin Stems