Easy Pumpkin Soup Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Can I use canned pumpkin instead of fresh? ›

When it comes to baking, I think you'd be fine using either canned or fresh. I'll always keep a few cans of regular pumpkin puree in my pantry because I love to bake with the stuff. It's certainly significantly easier!

Pumpkin & ginger soup

Place the pumpkin, shallots, ginger and some oil in a large saucepan and sauté until soft. Add the stock, coconut milk and chilli powder. Season, then bring to the boil and simmer for 40 minutes. Blitz in a food processor then serve with the fresh herbs, lime juice and a splash of coconut milk.

Add Flour Or Cornstarch

You can thicken soup by adding flour, cornstarch, or another starchy substitute.

You'll need to add sweetener, spices, and possibly a thickener (like eggs). However, you cannot use pumpkin pie filling in place of pure pumpkin unless you are making a pie or dessert that calls for the extra ingredients.

Canned pumpkin (labeled as "100% pure pumpkin") is a purée of pumpkin that is sometimes mixed with other kinds of winter squash. It is unsweetened and does not contain any added spices. Canned pumpkin and pumpkin puree are the same thing, and you'll often see the terms used interchangeably in recipes and cookbooks.

If the fresh pumpkin is overripe, it can start to ferment and develop a sour taste. Another factor to consider is the type of fresh pumpkin you're using.

If it tastes bland, add more salt. The salt definitely brings out all the flavors from that long list of spices. Stir in maple syrup.

“Soft fleshed pumpkins can make the soup a little watery. They are a different beast… from your standard greengrocer pumpkin.” As lovely as pumpkin is, its natural sweetness needs a little back-up to really shine. Try sweating a chopped leek with, or instead of, onion at the start of cooking.

Pumpkin lovers, brace yourselves. Raw pumpkin is mostly water — up to 90%! — so it really doesn't have much flavor. In fact, the flavor that we usually think of as “pumpkin” is actually pumpkin pie spice, a blend of ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.

Popular blends of pumpkin spice include warming flavors that are often found in baking, like ginger, nutmeg, allspice, cloves, and cinnamon. While different blends vary in proportions and some other spices may be be included in smaller quantities, those spices tend to be the most popular.

What does cinnamon do for pumpkins? ›

Covering the inside of your pumpkin with cinnamon can help inhibit mold growth. The ingredients that make the spice flammable, cinnamaldehyde and eugenol, also have antifungal and antibacterial properties that prevent mold and bacteria growth. Cinnamon is also a great pest repellent, as bugs can't stand the scent.

Most soups would be simmered covered to capture the moisture, however, if the soup needs to be reduced because you added too much liquid then uncovered is the way to go. If you are simmering uncovered it's best to check on the soup often to make sure it hasn't reduced down too much.

Bread and crackers are arguably the best side dish to serve with soup to soak up all that goodness. Pumpkin soup is the ideal soup to eat with bread because it's smooth and creamy. No little bits will fall off your cracker or slice, and the carbs will keep you satisfied long after you've cleaned your bowl.

Pumpkin is packed with vitamins and minerals, and it's relatively low in calories. It's also high in beta-carotene, with antioxidant and immuno-regulatory properties. If made according to a low-fat, low-sugar recipe, pumpkin soup is considered to be healthy.

Most canned pumpkin is pureed pumpkin. It's been cooked and canned, but you'd have to cook it anyways to make it soft enough to puree. As long as you get plain canned pumpkin without added seasonings, it's the same as what you would make at home.

What I found is that the biggest difference is the texture. The canned pumpkin has a sort of cottage cheese/ricotta texture, whereas the fresh pumpkin has a more sweet potato-like, thicker, more velvety texture. I personally think the fresh pumpkin pie texture is better. My husband agrees.

By comparison, a 3-pound pie pumpkin will likely give you enough puree for a recipe that calls for a can of pumpkin. After cooking and draining a pumpkin, this is about what to expect from a typical cooking pumpkin transformed into fresh pumpkin puree: 2½ pound pie pumpkin = 1¾ cups puree.

Substitute Pumpkin for Eggs, Oil or Butter | LIBBY'S®