Soft Pumpkin Dinner Rolls with Honey

This easy pumpkin dinner roll recipe, a favorite fall recipe to go along with all our warm fall and winter soups and strews. These homemade rolls are soft and fluffy rolls with fresh pumpkin, ginger and cinnamon. Easy to make with simple ingredients and instructions to help you make the best classic dinner rolls for all who enter your home. These easy pumpkin dinner rolls are a great side for Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas dinner or any fall festivity.

Ingredients For Pumpkin Dinner Rolls

Pumpkin Puree

In these dinner rolls I use a good amount of pumpkin but the flavor of pumpkin actually not very strong. Most of the time when you think of pumpkin flavors you think of the warm spices that normally complement the pumpkin and bring the flavor out. Also most fall pumpkin recipe have a lot of sugar making it seem like pumpkin is naturally sweet like fruit but its actually not super sweet, just a little… 

The pumpkin in the recipe real job is to add moisture and texture to our dinner rolls. The pumpkin holds on to the moisture without making it soggy but a warm, soft dinner rolls. 

You can use canned pumpkin or fresh pumpkin for this recipe. I like to cook a pumpkin or two at the beginning of the fall season and freeze my pumpkin puree for all my pumpkin recipes throughout the fall and holiday season. If you have a whole pumpkin and want to learn how to make it into homemade pumpkin puree find out here “how to make pumpkin puree“.

If you don’t have pumpkin you can substitute with sweet potato or butternut squash puree.

Flour

In most of my recipes I like to use 1/2 all purpose 1/2 whole wheat but for these rolls I choose to use 100% All Purpose Flour. All purpose has a much lighter texture insuring a good rise and lighter dinner roll. When I’m feeding my own family I’ll use 1/2 whole wheat but if I’m making them for Thanksgiving or Christmas or a potluck I’ll stick to 100% all purpose.

Yeast

Instant yeast is our rising agent. You could also use sourdough starter and just give the rising time 8-12 hours rather than 1-2 hours… At this time in my life I’m using yeast to rise my dough. I use Fleischmann’s Yeast, The photos say bread machine yeast but that’s just the jar I continue to refill with their larger bag of instant dry yeast. I keep the yeast in the refrigerator and activate it with warm water for about 5 minutes before adding other ingredients.

Warm Water

Warm water is needed to activate the yeast. It the water is cold you risk the yeast not activating during the rise time. If the water is hot your risk killing the yeast, stopping the rise, before its entered the oven. The yeast likes a warm temperature to do it job.

Honey 

Yeast feeds off of sugar in the honey and will activate faster if you add your sugar or honey in with the warm water while the yeast is activating. To add a little more flavor as well as sweetness to you dinner rolls I prefer honey for this recipe but sugar will work just as well.

Oil

Fats actually slow down and can even stop the activation process of the yeast so it is important to not add the oil until its already activated and right before or even while you add in the flour. We add a little oil to our dinner roll to keep them from drying out and maintaining their soft texture.

Spices

In this recipe I use ginger and cinnamon. The pumpkin flavor is not super strong in these rolls so adding these two complementary flavors bring out some of the pumpkin flavor. I like these rolls because they are not over powering with spice and pumpkin flavor but a nice complement to fall dinner.

Salt

Enhance the flavor with good salt like Redmond Real Salt. If you are looking for a unrefined natural salt with multiple minerals and electrolytes harvested in the United States of America, then look no further. Redmond Real Salt is full of flavor and nutrients and harvested out of the ancient seabed deep beneath Central Utah.

How To Make Pumpkin Dinner Rolls

Activate Yeast

Add yeast, warm water and sugar/honey together in a small bowl to activate the yeast. Let it sit for 5-10 minutes. The yeast should get foamy and bubbly. On warm days the yeast will activate faster on cooler days it might look like the photo below. That’s okay, its still active.

Add Oil and Pumpkin

After a few minutes add the rest of the wet ingredients to the yeast mixture. Stir together.

Add the Dry Ingredients

Next you can add the flour, salt, ginger and cinnamon. Add the flour slowly into your bowl. If you are using a KitchenAid use the dough hook attachment and begin on a low speed (2-4) while you add in the flour. 

If you are mixing and kneading by hand, use a wooden spoon or spatula to mix in the flour slowly until its not as sticky then start using your hands but don’t forget to flour them. 

Knead

Knead the dough until it forms into a nice ball at the end of your dough hook (or in your hands). You want the dough to no longer stick to the sides of the bowl of a stand mixer. Or knead by hand on a lightly floured surface. This can take 5-10 minutes of kneading.

Rest and First Rise

In a large bowl, let the dough rise until double in size. Cover with a damp towel or plastic wrap. In a warm house this might take 1 hour a cooler house this may take 2-3 hours.

Cut and Form Into Small Rolls

When the dough has double in size, bring it to a lightly floured work surface and fold it a few times over and cut in half, then cut those halves in half and those halves in thirds to create 12 equal pieces. Form each piece into 12 nice round dough balls and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Second Rise

Cover again with a damp towel or plastic wrap and let rise for a second time in a warm place for an hour or until double in size. When its ready to bake you can coat it with an egg wash to give it a nice shine as it bakes.

Bake

Preheat oven to 375 and bake for 18-20 minutes until golden brown. Let cool and enjoy with butter, honey, soup or stews, cranberry sauce or a turkey sandwich!

Store your fluffy pumpkin dinner rolls in an airtight container to avoid them drying out.