Pumpkin season usually means lattes, pie and candles that smell vaguely of cinnamon. This year the food world is pushing canned pumpkin somewhere more useful: into dinner. Bon Appétit’s autumn recipe push has been putting pumpkin into focaccia, muffins and even Sunday bolognese, and food sites everywhere are rediscovering that a tin of plain pumpkin purée works as a sauce base, not just a dessert filling.
Canned pumpkin is a great fall pasta substitute for tomato sauce. It has the same thick, clingy texture, but with an earthy sweetness that pairs well with butter, garlic and sage instead of basil and chilli. You melt it into brown butter, loosen it with pasta water, and you have a sauce that tastes like it took far longer than it did.
This one is built for a small kitchen and a tight budget. It uses one pan for the sauce and one pot for the pasta, nothing needs a blender, and the ingredient list is short enough to grab in one supermarket loop. It serves two comfortably, but doubles easily if you’re cooking for flatmates, and the leftover pumpkin in the tin doesn’t go to waste.
There’s also something to be said for cooking properly when it’s just you. Whether you live solo, and almost 30% of Americans do, or are enjoying a night to yourself, sitting down to a meal should be something to look forward to. A bowl of this, eaten slowly with your own company, counts.
Ingredients
- 200g short pasta (rigatoni, penne or fusilli all work)
- 30g unsalted butter
- 8 to 10 fresh sage leaves, plus extra to serve
- 2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
- 200g canned pumpkin purée (check the label says pure pumpkin, not pie filling)
- 150ml vegetable stock, or reserved pasta water
- 30g parmesan or vegetarian hard cheese, grated, plus extra to serve
- A pinch of grated nutmeg
- A pinch of chilli flakes, optional
- Salt and black pepper
Method
- Bring a large pot of well-salted water to the boil. Cook the pasta according to the packet instructions until al dente. Before draining, scoop out a mugful of the starchy pasta water and set it aside.
- While the pasta cooks, melt the butter in a wide pan over medium-low heat. Once it stops foaming, add the sage leaves and fry until crisp and fragrant, about two minutes, then lift them out onto a plate for garnish later.
- Add the sliced garlic (and chilli flakes, if using) to the same butter and cook for about 30 seconds, just until it smells good and hasn’t had time to catch and burn.
- Add the pumpkin purée and cook for about two minutes, stirring, so it loses its tinny edge and starts smelling toasty rather than raw.
- Pour in the stock or reserved pasta water, add the nutmeg and a good pinch of salt and pepper, and let it simmer gently for a minute or two until it loosens into a sauce.
- Drain the pasta and tip it straight into the sauce along with the grated parmesan. Toss everything together over low heat, adding a splash more pasta water if it looks thick or stiff, until the sauce coats every piece.
- Serve straight away, topped with the crispy sage leaves, a little more parmesan and a crack of black pepper.
| Prep time | Cook time | Serves | Approx. cost per portion |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 minutes | 20 minutes | 2 (doubles easily) | Around £1.20 to £1.50* |
*Based on using roughly half a tin of pumpkin, a third of a pack of pasta, and small amounts of butter and parmesan from a shared store cupboard. See the chart below for full pack prices.
Here’s what the main ingredients cost as full packs in a UK supermarket, so you can see how far a single shop stretches across several dinners.
A 500g bag of rigatoni comes in at around £0.75, a 425g tin of pumpkin purée is about £1.70, a 250g block of butter runs around £1.85, and 100g of grated parmesan sits around £2.80. You’ll only use a fraction of each for this one dinner, which is why the per-portion cost lands so low, and why it’s worth keeping these as pantry regulars through autumn rather than buying them for a single recipe.
Swaps and tips
Parmesan is traditionally made with animal rennet, so if you’re cooking for a vegetarian friend, swap it for a vegetarian Italian-style hard cheese. Most supermarkets stock one right next to the parmesan.
To make this fully plant-based, swap the butter for a plant-based block or a glug of olive oil, use vegetable stock, and swap the parmesan for a vegan hard cheese or a spoonful of nutritional yeast stirred in at the end. Full-fat coconut milk also works in place of cream if you want a richer sauce, though it will shift the flavour slightly towards the sweeter side.
Gluten-free pasta works just as well here if you need it; just check your stock cube too, since some brands include wheat.
You won’t use a full tin of pumpkin purée for one batch of this. Just make sure whatever’s left is 100% pure pumpkin and not pumpkin pie filling, which has sugar and spices added, then spoon the rest into a container or small freezer bags and keep it in the fridge for two or three days, or freeze it in portions for next time. It’s good stirred into porridge, swirled into soup, or folded into pancake batter.
Leftover pasta keeps in a sealed container in the fridge for a day or two. Reheat gently in a pan with a splash of water or milk to bring the sauce back to life, since it thickens as it sits.
Allergen note: this recipe contains gluten (pasta) and dairy (butter, parmesan). See the swaps above for gluten-free and dairy-free versions.
Sources
- Today.com: Sage Brown Butter Pumpkin Pasta
- Brown Butter Pumpkin Pasta with Sage
- Bon Appétit via Yahoo: The Farmers Market Is Built for Solo Cooking
- Tesco Groceries: pasta prices
- Tesco Groceries: Baking Buddy Natural Pumpkin Puree 425G
- Trolley.co.uk: Tesco British Salted Block Butter (250g)
- Tesco Groceries: Grated Parmigiano Reggiano 100G