Our best pumpkin recipes include a Middle Eastern pumpkin hummus recipe for a roast pumpkin and chickpea dip with dukkah, a Cambodian pumpkin coconut soup recipe that makes an aromatic soup that’s rich and creamy courtesy of coconut cream, a pumpkin chickpea curry recipe that calls for a red spice paste and coconut milk, and a recipe for a speedy spiced pumpkin pasta that clings lusciously to fusilli and other spiral pastas.
If October is pumpkin month for you and pumpkins are as plentiful and as affordable where you are as they are here in Australia right now, try some of our pumpkin recipes – or squash recipes for our North American readers. I’ve pulled together this collection of pumpkin recipes for your convenience as much as my own, to provide the balm we need right now, as there are few ingredients as comforting as pumpkin. We’ve got pumpkin salads, a savoury pumpkin porridge, spiced pumpkin soup, creamy pumpkin pasta, a sweet pumpkin pudding, and more.
If you’re a pumpkin lover like me, start with some of my favourite pumpkin recipes: this pumpkin lentil salad, spiced pumpkin soup and Cambodian pumpkin coconut soup, and if you’re fond of sweet and savoury porridges, such as my buckwheat kasha with bacon, eggs and mushrooms, make this spiced pumpkin porridge with spices, seeds and dried fruit, topped with crunchy caramelised pumpkin.
I’ve been buying pumpkin quarters, which pumpkins are conveniently sold in here in Australia. Yes, I’m still here, and my darling Terence and Pepper are still home in Siem Reap, I’m still looking for a new rental for mum during a dire housing crisis in Australia, and I’m about to accompany mum on a course of radiation treatment for lung cancer starting next week. That means I’m cooking lots of comfort food – dumplings, stews, pastas, and anything with pumpkins.
I met a lovely couple yesterday in Aldi – aren’t Aldi’s customers the friendliest? I meet the kindest, most interesting people in Aldi’s aisles – and found myself sharing the story of how the Portuguese took Japanese kabocha pumpkins from Cambodia to Japan. Of course pumpkin or winter squash is native to the Americas and travelled to Asia as part of the Columbian exchange. It’s the gourd, also called a wax gourd or winter melon, often confused with winter squash, that’s native to Cambodia.
I remember coming across that intriguing titbit way back in 2013 when I began researching our Cambodia cookbook and culinary history and I’ve referenced it in pumpkin recipes over the years. But when I returned to Mum’s yesterday and lazily Googled to double-check the date (instead of digging into my own years of notes), the anecdote popped up everywhere and Google’s unreliable AI Overview claimed it’s a well-documented example of the Columbian exchange.
Back in 2013 it was nowhere on the internet. My source was a historical text printed on good old fashioned paper, bounded in that fast-disappearing form called a book. My cynical side would blame that proliferation on AI, that it’s yet another example of the cannibalisation of original content enabled by the likes of ChatGPT. My optimistic side, however, prefers to think that it’s a story that captures the imagination, like all good stories about how food travels.
Now before you scroll down to our best pumpkin recipes, if you don’t find cooking inspiration in this collection, do browse our recipe archives, brimming with 15 years of recipes we’ve cooked around the world, from places we’ve lived, travelled and loved. Click on the heart on the right of any post to save it in your private account. Or browse our compilations of the most popular recipes of September, which are the recipes our readers searched for, spent time on, and hopefully cooked, and our 31 recipes to cook in October.
I also have a favour to ask. Grantourismo is reader supported. If you’ve enjoyed our recipes, please consider supporting Grantourismo by supporting our first-of-its-kind Cambodian culinary history and cookbook on Patreon; buying a handcrafted KROK, the best mortar and pestle ever; buying something on Amazon, such as these cookbooks for culinary travellers, classic cookbooks for serious cooks, or gifts for Asian food lovers or picnic lovers; or booking a cooking class or meal with locals on EatWith. We may earn a small commission but you won’t pay extra. Now let’s tell you all about our best pumpkin recipes.
Pumpkin Recipes for Pumpkin Soups, Pumpkin Pasta, Pumpkin Curry and Mores
Our best pumpkin recipes include everything from pumpkin soups and pumpkin salads to a pumpkin porridge and pumpkin pasta.
Pumpkin Hummus Recipe for Roast Pumpkin and Chickpea Dip with Dukkah
Our pumpkin hummus recipe for a roast pumpkin and chickpea dip with dukkah makes one of our best Middle Eastern style recipes and best homemade hummus recipes – along with our recipes for authentic hummus, beetroot hummus, carrot hummus, and more traditional hummus dishes such as hummus with spiced beef, hummus balila and balila salad.
Serve our pumpkin hummus with other Middle Eastern mezze or dips and starters, such as muhammara, baba ganoush, muttabal, and labneh, alongside traditional accompaniments, such as crunchy cucumber spears, radishes, pickles, olives, and crispy pita chips or warm flatbread. Arrange the lot on a platter if you’re feeding a crowd.
Along with other mezze, our pumpkin hummus makes a fantastic side for Middle Eastern mains, such as garlicky shish tawook, kofta meatballs and kofta kebabs, served with Middle Eastern spiced rice with nuts and raisins, and salads such as tabbouleh and fatoush.
Pumpkin Hummus Recipe for Roast Pumpkin and Chickpea Dip with Dukkah
Spiced Pumpkin Soup Recipe with Sour Cream, Crunchy Croutons, Crispy Shallots and Chilli Oil
This spiced pumpkin soup recipe makes a rich pumpkin soup that’s a combination of the kind of old-fashioned Australian creamy pumpkin soups my grandmother used to make and the Cambodian spiced pumpkin soup of Khmer Royal Cuisine. Comforting and creamy, despite no cream, it’s a perfect cold weather soup that can be served as an elegant appetiser or in big bowls for a cosy casual meal.
You’re going to love this spiced pumpkin soup recipe if you’re a lover of pumpkin soups. It’s a recipe that combines two of my favourite pumpkin soups, an old fashioned Australian pumpkin soup and a classic Cambodian recipe from Khmer Royal Cuisine for a pumpkin soup made with coconut cream and infused with spices, which you’ll also find below.
This pumpkin soup is incredibly delicious. It’s also super affordable if pumpkins are in season where you are. It freezes well, and it’s easy and straightforward to make, despite the longish list of ingredients. Don’t let those intimidate you, they just add depth of flavour.
The recipe is also versatile. You could use virtually any member of the pumpkin or squash families – butternut squash makes the richest version. You can also make it with coconut cream or add some coconut cream if you like, and if you do, add a dollop of cream or a swirl of coconut cream on top.
Spiced Pumpkin Soup Recipe with Sour Cream, Crunchy Croutons, Crispy Shallots and Chilli Oil
Cambodian Pumpkin Coconut Soup Recipe with Star Anise and Cinnamon
This Cambodian pumpkin soup recipe makes an aromatic, gently spiced pumpkin soup that’s rich and creamy thanks to coconut cream. Use coconut milk for a lighter broth. Cambodians like their soups to be balanced: a little spicy, a little salty, a little sweet, but you could omit the sugar if needed. The soup is swirled with more coconut cream and garnished with fresh basil for more fragrance and flavour.
Cambodia was on my mind, along with dear Terence and Pepper, when I shared this from Australia last year. Cambodia’s Pchum Ben festival had just ended, the monsoon season was about to finish, and Siem Reap Water Festival soon starting. It’s my favourite time of year in Cambodia, when everything is lush and green, and the cool weather is coming. I had to cook Cambodian food.
Like now, there were also plenty of pumpkins around, so I thought I’d share the Cambodian pumpkin coconut soup recipe, one of my favourite pumpkin recipes, which was partly the inspiration for the spiced pumpkin soup recipe, which was a combination of that and an old-fashioned pumpkin soup my Australian grandmother used to make.
I realised that I had never got around to sharing the original pumpkin soup recipes, so I thought I’d start with the Cambodian pumpkin coconut soup, considered to be a Khmer royal cuisine dish, and influenced by the French. We first learnt to make it in a Cambodian cooking class at Raffles Grand Hotel d’Angkor in 2011 on our first trip to Siem Reap for a magazine story.
Cambodian Pumpkin Coconut Soup Recipe with Star Anise and Cinnamon
Russian Spiced Pumpkin Porridge Recipe for Cossack Comfort Food
This delicious Russian spiced pumpkin porridge recipe makes my take on the traditional Cossack comfort food from Southern Russia, between Ukraine and the Caucasus Mountains, where my grandfather was born. Made with butternut pumpkin and barley, it’s savoury, sweet and gently spiced with cinnamon, allspice, cumin, turmeric, and paprika, and given texture with pumpkin and sunflower seeds, dried cranberries and currants.
I grew up with a much simpler version of this traditional pumpkin porridge, which, while eaten all over Russia, Ukraine and neighbouring Slavic countries is a specialty of Kuban in Southern Russia. The region lies between Ukraine and the Caucasus and has long been home to the legendary Cossacks. This is Cossack comfort food.
You can serve this pumpkin porridge for breakfast, lunch or dessert. It would be wonderful for a weekend fall/autumn brunch although we’ve been tucking into it on warm spring days. It’s nothing if not versatile: use any kind of pumpkin, although I love sweet butternut pumpkins for this dish, and you can switch out the spices, seeds and dried fruit. More of my Russian-Ukrainian family recipes here.
Russian Spiced Pumpkin Porridge Recipe for Cossack Comfort Food
Traditional Samlor Korko Recipe for a Hearty Cambodian Stirring Pot Soup
This traditional samlor korko recipe makes a Cambodian stirring pot soup – a rustic, nourishing vegetable stew-like soup that’s brimming with Southeast Asian vegetables and green fruit. Featuring Cambodia’s most quintessential ingredients, prahok and kroeung, it’s believed to be a very old dish, dating to the Khmer Empire. For many locals, this is Cambodia’s national dish.
A ‘samlor’ is a hearty soup or stew and this one is packed with vegetables, such as Cambodia’s favourite pumpkin, the kabocha, or Japanese pumpkin. Samlor korko is beloved by all Cambodians, but especially the older generation. With a base of pungent prahok (fermented fish) and a yellow-green kroeung, one of a handful of Khmer herb and spice pastes, this is one of the most quintessentially Cambodian dishes and one of my favourite Cambodian recipes.
We shared this hearty samlor korko recipe as part of a Cambodian soup recipe series, which kicked off with one of my favourite Cambodian soups, sour beef soup with morning glory. I followed up with a pork, pineapple and coconut milk stew and a cold ‘outside the pot’ soup recipe, popular during the humid monsoonal summers.
Traditional Samlor Korko Recipe for the Hearty Cambodian Stirring Pot Soup
Pumpkin Beetroot Salad on Creamy Whipped Feta with Pistachios and Mint
One of our best pumpkin recipes, this pumpkin beetroot salad on whipped feta with pistachios and fresh mint comes together quickly and is loaded with flavour. A bed of homemade whipped feta is topped with cumin-spiced pan-roasted butternut pumpkin pieces and baby beetroots, sprinkled with crunchy pistachios and fresh mint leaves, and drizzled with extra virgin olive oil.
Pumpkin and beetroot and are one of those great ingredient combinations – like tomato and buffalo mozzarella, prosciutto and melon, cucumber and yoghurt, and asparagus and mushrooms. You can’t go wrong with those classic ingredient pairings. And a sprinkle of crunchy pistachios adds texture and crunch and takes things to a whole other level.
It’s a very Middle Eastern style of presentation, like this roasted cauliflower on hummus and baby corn on creamy white beans. My inspiration is always the balela salad, a Levantine salad spread on soupy chickpeas that we used to eat regularly when we lived in the region, and this Antalya version of the Turkish white bean salad, in which the salad is also piled onto the creamy white beans.
We love to serve this pumpkin beetroot salad with toasted sourdough, homemade croutons, cheese sticks, crunchy pita crisps, or crispy crackers for dipping and scooping. This is not only one of our best pistachio recipes, it’s one of our best recipes with nuts and one of our best beetroot recipes.
Pumpkin Beetroot Salad on Creamy Whipped Feta with Pistachios and Mint
Pumpkin Lentil Salad Recipe with Beetroot, Goat Cheese, Pistachios and Poppy Seeds
Our pumpkin lentil salad recipe with beetroot, goat cheese and pistachios is packed with texture and flavour. Butternut pumpkin and lentils are pan-fried in cumin, arranged on mixed salad leaves, topped with baby beetroots and goat’s cheese pearls, sprinkled with crunchy pistachios, pumpkin seeds, cranberries, and fresh mint, and dressed with a fig balsamic vinegar dressing.
You’ll love this recipe if you’ve enjoyed our other pumpkin and beetroot salad recipes, such as this beetroot arugula salad with walnuts and feta on butter bean puree, our roast beetroot salad with feta, rucola and pistachios on cumin-spiced carrot hummus, this beet carrot salad with goat cheese, arugula and radish, or pumpkin beetroot salad on whipped feta with pistachios and fresh mint. It’s another of our best pumpkin recipes.
My inspiration was the salads of the Mediterranean and Middle East, where we lived, worked, travelled and wrote about for a decade – salads such as our Antalya style Turkish white bean salad, Arabic balela salad on soupy chickpeas, baby corn on creamy white beans, my roasted cauliflower on hummus, and this eggplant salad with pomegranate, sesame and parsley on hummus.
While you can easily eat this salad as a light meal on its own, it also makes a fantastic side salad to Mediterranean and Middle Eastern mains, such as Lebanese shish tawook (garlicky chicken), beef kofta kebabs, spicy potatoes, kofta meatballs, or Greek chicken souvlaki.
Pumpkin Lentil Salad Recipe with Beetroot, Goat Cheese, Pistachios and Poppy Seeds
Roasted Pumpkin Recipe with Yoghurt Garlic Lemon Sauce and Dukkah
This roast pumpkin recipe is one of my favourite Middle Eastern recipes and another of our best pumpkin recipes. We lived in the Middle East for eight years, travelled the region for even longer as travel and food writers, and adore Middle Eastern food. We’re especially fond of the Levantine cuisines of Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, where grilled and roasted vegetable dishes are often served with a tangy yoghurt sauce.
Our roasted pumpkin recipe makes a delicious Middle Eastern side dish of sweet roast pumpkin doused in a delightfully tangy yoghurt, garlic and lemon sauce, generously sprinkled with dukkah and sumac, scattered with toasted cashews and pistachios, and garnished with fresh dill. The dukkah and nuts add texture, while sumac gives the dish a distinctively Middle Eastern citrusy flavour.
Like our Middle Eastern spiced rice with nuts and raisins, this roasted pumpkin dish makes a fantastic side for mains such as garlicky shish tawook, kofta kebabs and kofta meatballs. Kick off the meal with mezze such as hummus, muhammara and baba ganoush and serve with Middle Eastern salads tabbouleh and fatoush and you have a proper Middle Eastern feast.
If you adore pumpkins as much as I do – I love anything made with pumpkin, whether savoury or sweet; pumpkin soup, pumpkin hummus, pumpkin salads, pumpkin desserts, any kind of pumpkins – know that you can use any variety of pumpkin or squash for this roasted pumpkin recipe, but it’s best with a sweet deeply flavoured pumpkin.
Roasted Pumpkin Recipe with Yoghurt Garlic Lemon Sauce and Dukkah
Pumpkin Pasta Recipe with Creamy Pumpkin Pasta Sauce for Any Pasta
This speedy pumpkin pasta recipe makes a creamy pumpkin pasta sauce for any pasta, fresh or dried. The rich velvety sauce clings lusciously to fusilli and other spiral pastas. It’s also heavenly with fresh homemade pastas, especially gnocchi. Finish with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and sprinkle with parmesan cheese, chilli flakes, crunchy fried breadcrumbs, and fresh basil.
If you don’t have any Italian crunchy fried breadcrumbs on hand, use pangrattato, as it’s super easy to make and can be made ahead. Like dukkah, I always have pangrattato on hand, as I sprinkle the stuff on everything from eggs to salads to add crunch and texture. I used this plain pangrattato the first time I made this dish, but this pangrattato with lemon zest, parsley and parmesan is divine.
In Italian, ‘pangrattato’ means grated bread or breadcrumbs – ‘pan’ is bread, and ‘grattato’ is grated – although it usually refers to crunchy toasted breadcrumbs. To make pangrattato, you just stir-fry the breadcrumbs in extra virgin olive oil or a decent quality olive oil. Italians use plain breadcrumbs, but we love panko breadcrumbs. I use this round flat bottomed wok for making pangrattato, but by all means use your favourite frying pan.
Looking for more quick and easy pasta recipes? Try my creamy tomato pasta sauce with gnocchi, penne Bolognese recipe for a ‘cheat’s Bol’, this asparagus, mushrooms and bacon gnocchi, cherry tomato feta pasta, my bacon and mushroom pasta, this canned tuna pasta with scallions, capers and fresh herbs, and this lemon pasta recipe for pasta al limone from Southern Italy.
Pumpkin Pasta Recipe with Creamy Pumpkin Pasta Sauce for Any Pasta
Crispy Pan Fried Pumpkin Gnocchi with Brown Butter Sage Sauce
This quick and easy recipe for crispy pan fried pumpkin gnocchi with brown butter sage sauce makes my take on the classic pasta from Northern Italy, which you would have tried if you’ve been to Italy‘s romantic Verona, which Italians call the ‘city of gnocchi’. We use shelf-stable pumpkin gnocchi instead of fresh gnocchi for texture and crunch, and while the brown butter sage sauce is authentic, we bump up the sage for more flavour and fragrance.
While I’ve used store-bought pumpkin gnocchi for this recipe, I will be sharing recipes for potato gnocchi and pumpkin gnocchi very soon and will add links here. Homemade gnocchi is easier to make than you might think and once you’ve made a couple of different kinds you can really use your imagination and go wild with flavours.
If you’re looking for a speedy simple meal for dinner after lots of cooking, this cosy comforting pasta comes together quickly. One of our best pasta recipes, this pan fried pumpkin gnocchi can be on the table in 15 minutes. Serve with plenty of crusty bread to mop up the brown butter sage sauce.
Gnocchi lover? Try this pan fried gnocchi with broccoli and bacon, my asparagus, mushrooms and bacon gnocchi, this creamy tomato pasta sauce with gnocchi recipe and basil pesto with gnocchi recipe.
Crispy Pan Fried Pumpkin Gnocchi with Brown Butter Sage Sauce
Pumpkin Chickpea Curry Recipe with Cashews, Coriander, Crispy Shallots
If you’re a lover of both pumpkins and curries, you’ll adore this pumpkin chickpea curry recipe. It was inspired partly by one of Cambodia‘s best street food dishes, a curry-like soup we’ve long enjoyed at a simple local eatery in Preah Dak village near Banteay Samre temple and Angkor Archaeological Park. Made with a red spice paste, fresh coconut milk, and chicken or beef (pork blood cake optional), it features chunky pieces of pumpkin.
The lovely little lady whose bowls of noodles we’ve been slurping for 12 years offers a choice of just two soups, a red curry soup and a classic yellow-green nom banh chok. I can never decide which to order and inevitably end up with the more herbaceous, lemongrass-driven, fish-based nom banh chok garnished with edible flowers and foraged leaves and herbs, easily one of the best Southeast Asian noodle dishes, and one of our best recipes with lemongrass.
But when I do choose the rich red curry soup that my Cambodian friends call ‘Khmer curry laksa’, I always wish I’d order it more often. Kong, a tuk tuk driver I’ve long used, has been known to order a bowl of each – and finish both! I’d do the same if she offered smaller portions. My recipe was inspired partly by that soup, made with a red Khmer spice paste, and partly by the rich Cambodian saraman curry, one of our favourite Cambodian recipes.
Having said that, our pumpkin chickpea curry recipe calls for Thai massaman curry paste. That’s only because it’s more accessible if you prefer to use a store-bought curry paste. But we’d love you to make this with our Thai red curry paste or Cambodian spice pastes (above) if you have time to make them from scratch. And if you do, please use a mortar and pestle if you have one. Curry lover? More of our best curry recipes here. Serve with steamed jasmine rice instead of rice noodles.
Pumpkin Chickpea Curry Recipe with Cashews, Coriander, Crispy Shallots
Caramelised Pumpkin Sago Pudding Recipe
This caramelised pumpkin sago pudding recipe makes a sweet Cambodian dessert called borbor lapov. Made with pumpkin and sago pearls – lapov is pumpkin in Khmer while a borbor is a porridge – it’s a sweet porridge eaten as a street food snack. At home, you can add vanilla or coconut ice cream and a sprinkle of sesame seeds.
If you loved our creamy mango sago and banana coconut tapioca pudding with star anise and sesame, you’re also going to love this caramelised pumpkin sago pudding. The caramelised pumpkin combines with the sago pearls to create a pudding that is sweet and textured and, if you serve it warm, also very comforting.
For me, it’s a perfect post-dinner dessert made for cool autumn/fall weather or early spring evenings. Although here in Southeast Asia these sorts of sweets are rarely eaten after dinner when locals prefer to enjoy fruit to aid digestion. Rather, sweets are eaten as a snack any time of the day, even right before dinner.
Cambodians pick up desserts such as this pudding from a local market or sweets stall, mobile cart or shop, morning, afternoon or evening. Or they might slip out to a casual local eatery specialising in sweets, where all the different desserts are laid out in trays and customers choose what they want, often combining a number of sweets on one plate.
Caramelised Pumpkin Sago Pudding Recipe for the Cambodian Dessert Porridge Borbor Lapov
Please do let us know if you make any of our best pumpkin recipes, as we’d love to hear how they turn out for you.
