This is my pumpkin soup in the pumpkin shell experiment. When I was a younger we had a lady in our church who make her pumpkin soup in the pumpkin shell. I have never seen this done by one else. I decide this year, will all my extra pumpkins, to try it at least once.
To be honest, I don’t know that I will do this again. Mainly because my kids didn’t like the soup. I like it. When I blended the soup the next day my kids liked it better. Cooking it in the shell worked, but had some difficulties. I will share the process and to help you have success in your creative dinner making.
How to Cook Pumpkin Soup in a Pumpkin Shell
Choose Your Pumpkin
Choose a medium to large size pumpkin. You want the pumpkin to be big enough to fit all your soup fillings but small enough to fit in your pot or pan that you are baking it in.
Clean The Pumpkin
Wash the outside of the pumpkin. For cleanliness sake, we wash the outside of the pumpkin because we are using it as our bowl for out food.
Cut and Gut The Inside of The Pumpkin
Cut the top of the pumpkin off. Don’t cut to low or you will loose room for the soup. I cut the top off and the stem. I don’t want the stem catching fire in the oven and this also allows for a steam hole.
Saute Your Soup Ingredients
The recipe I used is a vegan veggie soup with jalapeno and coconut milk. The flavor was good but the texture did fit very well. It was too brothy and not creamy enough… I should have blended the bean with the vegetable broth to create a thicker, creamy texture. What every recipe you do try with your pumpkin shell make sure you saute and cook everything before putting it in the pumpkin. This will shorten the time you have it in the oven and assure everything got cook through. Especially if you are using meat.
Add Ingredients to The Pumpkin Shell
Pour you soup ingredients into your pumpkin shell. Broth, veggies, meat, beans. Leave any milks or dairy out until the end when its done baking.
Baking the Pumpkin Soup
Bake the pumpkin on the lowest rack in your oven at 375 degrees for 2 hours or until the shell is soften and the pumpkin is fully cooked. It may take longer depending on the size of the pumpkin. I did find out that at 375 my pumpkin skin did get a little brown so if you really want to avoid this maybe try 350 degrees for a longer time.
Scrape the Pumpkin And Serve
One the pumpkin is done baking, take a fork and scrape the sides of the soup from the inside getting the ‘meat’ of the pumpkin incorporated into the soup. Pour in your coconut milk or other dairy products your recipe might use. Serve your pumpkin soup from the shell and enjoy this fun meal!
Is Cooking Pumpkin Soup in the Shell Worth it?
Pros
There was too great benefits of serving the pumpkin soup straight our the shell. Number one was the appearance. It gets 5 starts for aesthetics. Secondly the pumpkin flavor in the broth was amazing. It wasn’t overpowering but it was defiantly there. It was a wonderful flavor but I do thing I could get that flavor with pumpkin chunks in a normal pot all the same.
Cons
It took a long time. Instead of just thought things into a pot and calling it soup this took a lot more prep work. Cleaning the pumpkin, with all the insides and seeds, took a good amount of work that in the end didn’t seem pay off as much as I wished it did. My kids loved making the soup with me but then wouldn’t eat it and that never feels good.
The texture with this recipe just did not work our quite right. The next day I blended the left over before heating it up for lunch and my kids ate some of it but not a lot. (I think it was may have been a little spicy for them).
Conclusion
It was very pretty and fun to do. More work for sure and kinda worth it. If ever I do this again it will be a different recipe. Something that my kids will enjoy, then maybe it will all be worth it for me.
How To Cook A pumpkin In the Shell
Materials
- 1 Pumpkin
- Large pot or deep pan
- Recipe and Ingredients
Instructions
- Wash the outside of your pumpkin
- Cut the top of the pumpkin off and clean out the inside from all the guts and seeds.
- Saute you soup ingredients, then add them into your pumpkin shell along with your broth.
- Bake the pumpkin for 2 hours at 375 degrees on the bottom rack of the oven.
- Once the pumpkin is cooked take a fork and scrape the insides of the pumpkin without puncturing it.
- Serve straight from the pumpkin and enjoy!
Vegan Pumpkin Spicy Soup With Coconut Cream
Ingredients
- 1 Pumpkin Whole, or 3 cups cubed pumpkin
- 1 1/2 cups cooked navy beans or 1, 15 oz can
- 4 cups vegetable broth
- 1 onion
- 1 cup mushrooms
- 1 bell peppers
- 1 jalapeno (seeds optional)
- 1 banana pepper
- 1 cup chopped spinach or kale
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1 teaspoon thyme
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon ginger
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup coconut milk
Instructions
In A Whole Pumpkin Shell
- Saute onions, bell peppers, jalapeno, banana peppers, garlic, spinach, mushrooms with the thyme, cinnamon and salt.
- Pour into your cleaned out pumpkin shell. Also add the broth and navy beans save the coconut milk for later. (For a thicker, creamier broth, blend the broth and beans together before adding the soup)
- Bake in the oven at 375 degrees for 2 hours.
- Once the pumpkin is cooked take a fork and scrape the walls of the pumpkin without puncturing it.
- Pour in the coconut milk. Serve and enjoy!
In A Pot On The Stove
- In a pot saute onions, bell peppers, jalapeno, banana peppers, garlic, spinach, mushrooms with the thyme, cinnamon and salt and the cubed pumpkin a
- Pour in the broth and navy beans save the coconut milk for later. (For a thicker, creamier broth, blend the broth and beans together before adding the soup)
- Bring to a boil and then let simmer for 1 hour.
- Once the pumpkin cubes are soft turn off the heat and pour in the coconut milk.
- Serve and enjoy!
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