Stuffed pumpkin is popular as a savory dish which is prepared by stuffing hollowed out pumpkin with a number of ingredients often consisting of rice, meat, vegetables, seasonings, and spices. At times, cheese and bread are also used as pumpkin stuffing ingredients. A few recipes suggest the use of poultry seasoning and garlic salt for enhanced flavor and savor. Among various variations of the dish, the thanksgiving version and the fruit stuffed pumpkin are quite popular, with the former stuffed with root vegetables which are often cooked inside the pumpkin, and the latter stuffed with fruits like cranberries and apples, and commonly served as a dessert due to its sweet taste because of use of brown sugar in the stuffing mix.
Commonly Used Ingredients and Preparation Overview of Stuffed Pumpkin
The simplest stuffed pumpkin recipe suggests the use of pumpkin, rice, pork sausage, soy sauce, and garlic salt as the ingredients.
The preparation process suggests filling hollowed out pumpkin with rice and sausage stuffing and baking it in a greased baking pan. The rice and sausage stuffing is prepared by sautéing onions and combining it with cooked sausage, soy sauce, and garlic salt.
Stuffed Pumpkin Recipe Variations
There are numerous variations of stuffed pumpkin, explained in terms of use of varied stuffing ingredients. A few popular ones have been discussed below:
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Pork and beef based stuffed pumpkin- the pumpkin stuffing used in this dish is a mix of ground pork and ground beef. Other stuffing ingredients consist of onions, crackers, garlic cloves, and cinnamon. Poultry seasoning (a blend of thyme, sage, marjoram, rosemary, and pepper) and salt are used as the seasoning agents for the stuffing. The stuffing is spoon-filled into hollowed out pumpkin, which is then baked in oven and served hot.
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Pumpkin packed with bread and cheese- bread cubes and cheese (any type like Swiss cheese, blue cheese, cheddar cheese or a combination of two or more) are combined along with garlic, heavy cream, salt, pepper, and nutmeg to prepare the stuffing for pumpkin.
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Stuffed pumpkin with wild rice- long grain brown rice and wild rice are combined along with chopped walnuts, nutmeg, cinnamon, green apples, garlic cloves, and seasonings to prepare the pumpkin stuffing.
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Vegetarian thanksgiving stuffed pumpkin- the thanksgiving stuffed pumpkin recipe suggests filling hollowed out pumpkin with vegetable stew and then baking it in oven. Another alternative is to stuff the pumpkin with roasted root vegetables (celery root, carrots, shallots etc.) and mushrooms, and bake the pumpkin in oven, while allowing the vegetables to cook inside the pumpkin. This dish is popularly served on thanksgiving occasions and is best served with wine sauce and any roasted vegetable.
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Stuffed pumpkin with apple and cranberry- the recipe for this dish suggests stuffing hollowed out pumpkin with cranberry and apple mix, before it is baked in an oven. The other ingredients that make up the stuffing apart from apples and cranberries include dates, nuts, orange zest, lemon zest, brown sugar, garlic cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice. This fruit stuffed pumpkin is popularly served as a dessert after topping it with whipped cream or ice cream.