Tender, sweet, baked stuffed pumpkin with a delicious mixture of rice, vegetables, nuts & cranberries. A beautiful centrepiece for your Thanksgiving or Halloween gathering!
Being relatively new to Canada, Thanksgiving is still a novelty for us. In England, although we kind of celebrate with harvest festivals etc, there is no national holiday like in Canada or the US. As you can probably imagine, I am always open to celebrations which involve copious amounts of food and drink so I now fully embrace Canadian Thanksgiving! An extra day off work and more time to spend with my family is an added bonus!
This will be my third Thanksgiving and my first vegan one so I have been busy creating a couple of great festive recipes to share with you. I am sharing this savoury recipe today and then later in the week will come a glorious dessert….
Vegan food is often stereotyped as being bland and boring. This magnificent looking Roast Stuffed Pumpkin centrepiece is anything but! Filled to bursting with a delicious mixture of rice, vegetables, nuts and cranberries, this pumpkin in all it’s orange rotund glory is just beautiful.
This Roast Stuffed Pumpkin is deceptively easy to put together and can even be made in advance, wrapped in foil and stored in the fridge until you are ready to roast it. How great is that? A totally stress free day with no messy prep work!
Because of this it is also perfect if you are invited to a gathering where meat of some kind is going to be served up and you know there will not be much for you to eat. You can prepare this pumpkin, wrap it up in foil and take it along with you to bake and serve. Just watch those non vegans beg for a slice! You can have your portion and the rest can be used as a side for everybody else to share (if you can bear to part with it!)
As well as being great for Thanksgiving this Roast Stuffed Pumpkin makes a fantastic Halloween dinner centre-piece and if you love Halloween as much as me then you might want to check out this round up post which I wrote for Parade’s Community Table. It features 20 Frightfully Spooktacular Vegan Halloween Recipes and is sure to please your little (and big) monsters!
I would love to see you serving my Roast Stuffed Pumpkin at your Thankgiving celebrations, so please share your pictures on Instagram (@avirtualvegan) and add the hashtag #avirtualvegan so I don’t miss them! Or you can post a comment on my Facebook page. It would also be great if you could leave some feedback in the comments section below . I love to know what you think of my recipes and a positive comment helps others see that my recipes are reliable.
If you love pumpkin then you might also enjoy my Pumpkin, Pecan & Chocolate Granola Bars.
Roast Stuffed Pumpkin
Ingredients
- 1 medium pumpkin , or round squash, ( approximately 8 inch diameter - If your pumpkin is very different in size then please see the recipe notes)
- 1 cup cooked & cooled rice , any kind of rice is fine although there will be more flavour/texture if you use wild rice
- 2 teaspoon olive oil , optional
- 1 medium onion , chopped finely
- 3 large cloves garlic , chopped finely
- 10 mushrooms , chopped into small pieces
- 60g | 1/2 cup walnut pieces
- 60g |m1/2 cup dried cranberries
- 1 large handful spinach , chopped
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- salt & pepper
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F.
- Toast the walnuts in a fry pan over a medium heat for a minute or two moving constantly.
- Remove from heat, pour into a small bowl and set aside.
- Sauté the onions and garlic in one teaspoon of the oil (in the same pan) until just starting to turn golden. If you wish to keep the recipe oil-free use a tablespoon or two of water to sauce instead.
- Add the mushrooms and cook for 1 minute longer then remove from the heat and allow to cool.
- Carefully cut the top off the pumpkin (about the top third).
- Set the top aside.
- If you can't see the seedy innards then just use a small sharp knife to cut a circle out of the flesh at the top and pull it out like a plug.
- Remove the stringy innards and discard. You can also discard the seeds although I recommend roasting them (see recipe notes).
- Brush the inside of the pumpkin with the remaining 1 teaspoon of olive oil. Omit if you want the recipe to be oil-free.
- Season the inside generously with salt and pepper.
- Place all the filling ingredients into a bowl and mix well, adding the sautéd onions, garlic and mushrooms.
- Spoon into the pumpkin cavity, pressing down well as you go. You want it packed in very tightly.
- Keep going until full.
- Place the pumpkin top back on.
- Wrap completely and tightly in tin foil. At this stage the pumpkin can be stored in the fridge for a day or two before baking if you want to get it ready ahead of time.
- Place on a tray and bake for around 1 hr 30 mins or until tender. Check it by pulling back some foil and inserting a knife or a fork into the side. If it is soft then it is ready.
- Remove from the oven and leave for at least 15 - 30 minutes before slicing.
Long time vegan, creator of A Virtual Vegan & author of the book 
Christopher says
I didn’t see what to do with the spinach. I presume you would sautee after the mushrooms and add to the filling mixture? Have you tried making it with fresh cranberries instead of dried? They’re in season, so thought I might give that a try. Thanks!
A Virtual Vegan says
The spinach just gets mixed into the bowl with the other filling ingredients. You don’t need to cook it first.
Dried cranberries are best for this recipe. They add chewy texture and little bursts of sweetness. Fresh ones would be a bit tart and probably end up indistinguishable amongst the rice once it was all baked. They might also be a bit tart.
Ari says
Do you cook the rice first or put it in with the filling and bake it?
A Virtual Vegan says
You need to start with cooked, cooled rice.
JO COBURN says
I made this for my husband’s family Thanksgiving, it was wonderful! Eventhough my pumpkin was undercooked, the filling was awsome and it looked so cool in the pumpkin. I will make another one next year, and be more mindful of the timing inorder for the pumpkin to be eaten!! I used extra ingredients to make a second batch of filling to which I added one diced and cooked sweet potatoe for another carry-in the same weekend. This was also well recieved!!
A Virtual Vegan says
I’m really pleased you enjoyed it Jo! An easy way to know if the pumpkin is nicely cooked is to just stick a fork in it from the outside. It should go in easily and feel tender. Hope that helps and thanks so much for stopping by to leave feedback!
Karen says
Can you use a different squash? Kabocha perhaps?
Thanks!
Melanie McDonald says
Any round shaped squash or pumpkin will be fine.
Molly says
What kind of pumpkin? Could we use the kind that are sold for Halloween or does it need to be a certain variety?
Melanie McDonald says
Any kind will do. The real cheap halloween ones can be a bit fibrous and tasteless but they are perfectly edible and look good on the table. I often use them regardless. The big round squat “Cinderella” looking pumpkins (I believe called Rouge Vif d’Etampes) are really great for it, as are Cheese Pumpkins (they look like Cinderella style pumpkins but are creamy white colour), blue pumpkins or the ones labelled sugar pie pumpkins too. Basically any pumpkin or squash will be fine. Whichever one you think would look best on your table!
Susanna says
Hi – pumpkin stuffed, wrapped and ready to go for lunch with friends tomorrow. I am just wondering if perhaps I could slow cook it? Any advice?
A Virtual Vegan says
I think you could slow cook it. The pumpkin would probably end up much sweeter. I’ve never tried though so I’m not sure on temperature or timings.
Elle says
Is it really necessary to wrap it in foil? I bake whole winter squashes of all different varieties without cutting a wrapping them. And they always come out really well. So does the foil really do something? Or could we just do it with out?
A Virtual Vegan says
In testing I found it turned out better with foil. It enables it to steam more easily and the filling stays moister and the pumpkin a little softer.
Tamara Russell says
This was our Christmas dinner and very lovely.
LCM says
I made this today. Though it took me longer to prepare, it was well worth it. Thanks for posting this yummy recipe!
Todd mickens says
I can’t wait to make this
tracy says
Hi…do you recommend sweetened or unsweetened dried cranberries in this recipe?
Thanks!
A Virtual Vegan says
It doesn’t really matter. Just use what you’ve already got or whatever one you prefer. I tend to struggle to buy unsweetened cranberries here so usually use sweetened.
Cynthia Larson says
Made this for a church potluck, I didn’t slice it just put a spoon in the pumpkin, several requested the recipe.
A Virtual Vegan says
That’s great Cynthia. It’s perfect for pot lucks. I’m glad it was well received!