Halloween is approaching and the pumpkins are coming on sale. Beyond carving a pumpkin, there are many great ways to put pumpkins to use. Below are just a few cool pumpkin recipes that could be worth trying this season.

Pumpkin soup

Pumpkin soup is very easy to make. Simply blend pumpkin, onions, vegetable stock and cream and boil it – and, voila; you have yourself a tasty autumnal soup. Of course, there are other ingredients you can add to pumpkin soup too to add more flavour depth. For some meatiness, try adding some bacon. For a Thai twist, add some ginger and lemongrass, and swap out the cream for coconut milk. 

Pumpkin bread

Need some bread to dip in your pumpkin soup? Why not try this easy pumpkin bread anyone can bake? Truth to be told, pumpkin bread is better as a sweet dessert bread. It’s typically made with a variety of spices and lots of sugar. Think banana bread but with more of a zing. You can cut it into slices to snack on throughout the day or spread cream cheese on it. 

Pumpkin curry

Pumpkin can be incorporated into a delicious vegetarian curry. As with the Thai pumpkin soup, you’ll want to use classic Thai ingredients like ginger, lemongrass and coconut milk. You can also add chilli for a kick and chickpeas for extra solid texture. This pumpkin curry recipe offers a step by step guide on how to make this curry. 

Pumpkin lasagne

For a tasty vegetarian lasagne, try swapping out beef mince for cooked pumpkin. Pumpkin can go particularly well with spinach, lentils and ricotta cheese. Fry all these ingredients up together and spread them between your layers of lasagne pasta. Feel free to add some spices to give this dish more of a kick and experiment with other cheeses. 

Pumpkin risotto

Looking for a rice dish that incorporates pumpkin? Putting pumpkin in a risotto is one of the tastiest ways to do this. This risotto could contain various other ingredients such as onions, garlic, cheese and even chicken slices. Finish it off with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar to give it that taste of Italy. You can find out how to cook a pumpkin risotto at this page. 

Pumpkin pie

The most iconic pumpkin recipe is pumpkin pie. This uses shortcrust pastry and a filling made of pumpkin, eggs, sugar, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon. This is sometimes frosted off with icing sugar. Make sure that you know how to make a shortcrust pastry in order to make the crust. This guide shows you how to make the perfect shortcrust pastry for the perfect pumpkin pie. 

Pumpkin cake

Pumpkin cake is prepared almost identically to carrot cake, but with pumpkin added instead of carrot. You can combine the two cakes to create a pumpkin carrot cake as their tastes do compliment each other, but at first it could be worth experimenting with just pumpkin. Spices like cinnamon and nutmeg taste great in this cake. Top it off with a sweetened cream cheese layer.