Stuffed Baked Pumpkin Entree

Shannon Beigert

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20231127-151026-Recipe - Stuffed Baked Pumpkin Entree.pdf

I hope you had a happy and delicious Thanksgiving! As the Autumn holiday winds down, yesterday I began to put away Thanksgiving decorations. In doing so, I noticed two small fresh pumpkins as part of a centerpiece on the kitchen table. They were still in good shape, so I decided to stuff them and bake them.

Here is the recipe

(Find a printable .PDF file attached to this story):

2 small sugar pumpkins
1 cup of quinoa
2 cups of chicken or turkey broth
1 package consisting of four specialty chicken/apple sausage links
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 apple, finely chopped
1/4 cup of dried cranberries (I use the 50 percent less sugar variety)
2 T. olive oil
1 tsp. thyme
1 tsp. oregano
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper

Bring the broth to a boil in a medium-sized pan. Once it reaches a rolling boil, stir in the quinoa. Let it boil for a minute, and then turn the heat down low and cover. The quinoa should simmer on the stove for 10 minutes or so, until it is cooked, the water is completely absorbed, and it is fluffy.

Meanwhile, rinse and dry the pumpkins, cut off the tops, and remove the seeds and stringy fiber inside. This is not for the faint of heart! Once the seeds and stringy fiber are removed, use a tablespoon to scrape the insides of the pumpkins until smooth. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place both pumpkins in a baking dish.

Add the oil to a frying pan, and place it on the stove over medium heat. Remove the casings from the sausages and place the sausage in the pan, breaking it up. Add the onion. Fry until the onion is translucent and the sausage is cooked through.

Place the sausage and onion mixture in a large bowl, add the apple, dried cranberries, spices and cooked quinoa.

Note that every pumpkin is sized a little differently. I added the quinoa last until I eyeballed that I had enough of the stuffing mixture to fill the pumpkins. I did not use all of the quinoa, and omitted about 1/4 a cup in order to fit into my pumpkins.

Mix the stuffing ingredients together. Fill the pumpkins with the stuffing and put the tops back on them. Place aluminum foil tightly over the stuffed pumpkins. Bake in the oven at 350 degrees until fully cooked, about 1 and 1/2 hours.

When serving, use your spoon to scrape the cooked pumpkin meat and the stuffing together to form a delicious entree. Serves 4-6. Enjoy!

Shannon Beigert is a chef and baker who loves to entertain guests at her Olympia home. If you want to let her know that this recipe worked well for you, send her a note at shannon@theJOLTnews.com