Make Your Own "Canned" Pumpkin

Welcome to Pumpkin Week! With all the great pumpkin recipes I’ll be sharing this week, I thought it would be helpful to show you an easy way to turn fresh pumpkins into pumpkin puree for your cakes, muffins, pies and more!

You may have heard that the nearly year-long canned pumpkin shortage is over, but that doesn’t mean that you need to rush out to the store to buy up a pantry full of this canned “superfood.” Making it yourself is super easy!

First, start off with a clean, fresh pumpkin. This one is actually from my garden, but one from the store is just fine, too.

With a sharp knife, carefully cut the pumpkin in half.

Scoop out all the seeds and pulp, leaving a hollow shell. Cut each half into four pieces, or more if you have an especially large pumpkin.

Arrange your pumpkin pieces in a microwave-safe dish. If it doesn’t all fit, you can cook your pumpkin in two batches.

Cover the dish in plastic wrap. This will keep the pumpkin from drying out, and help to steam cook it as well.

Put the covered dish in the microwave for 20 minutes.

Take out the dish, and carefully pull back a corner of the plastic. The steam is very hot, so you want to take care that you don’t burn yourself! Poke the pumpkin in several places with a fork. If it isn’t tender, keep returning the pumpkin to the microwave for 5 minutes at a time until it is nice and tender.

After it is cooked through, let it cool enough to handle it without burning yourself. Cut away the skin, and put the “meat” of the pumpkin into a food processor. Puree and scoop into bags. I put 2 cups into each bag, and labeled it. This way, I can pull one small bag out of the refrigerator, and know exactly how much pumpkin I have!

edit: This is perfect for putting in the fridge or in the freezer (that way I’ll still have pumpkin for pumpkin pie in November and December). You probably could can it as well, I just haven’t had any experience with canning… yet! I hope to soon! : )

Make sure to come back tomorrow morning when I make something YUMMY with this fresh pumpkin!

Always,