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Creamy Pumpkin Pasta

3 years ago
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This creamy pumpkin pasta sauce is the ultimate comfort food—smooth, velvety, and full of cozy autumn flavors. Made with simple ingredients like pumpkin puree, cream, and a hint of spice, it’s a quick and delicious way to elevate your pasta night. Perfect for weeknight dinners or when you want something warm and satisfying without the fuss. Let me show you how easy it is to make this rich, flavorful sauce at home!

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Yield: 4

Creamy Pumpkin Pasta

pumpkin pasta
5.0 Stars (3 Reviews)

My creamy pumpkin pasta sauce is one of my favourite comfort meals when I want something rich, velvety, and a little bit indulgent. I blend roasted pumpkin with garlic, herbs, and a splash of cream to create a sauce that clings beautifully to pasta. It’s earthy, warm, and perfect for autumn nights or lazy dinners. Plus, it’s an easy way to sneak in veg while still feeling like you’ve made something a bit special. Weeknight cooking doesn’t get better than this.

Cook Time 1 hour
Total Time 1 hour

Ingredients

  • 400g pumpkin, cut into 1-inch slices
  • 2 tbsp olive oil, divided
  • 1 onion, finely diced
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 125ml dry white wine
  • 2 tbsp tomato paste
  • 200ml creme fraiche
  • 25g reggiano parmigiano, or other hard Italian cheese, grated
  • 400g pasta, uncooked
  • Maldon sea falt flakes, and freshly cracked pepper.

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 200C.
  2. Toss the pumpkin slices through 1 tbsp olive oil. Spread out on a baking tray and roast for 45 minutes. Remove from heat and use a fork to mash the cooked pumpkin. Set aside.
  3. Heat the remaining oil over medium heat in a skillet, and then saute the onions for 5 minutes, or until soft and translucent. Add the garlic and cook an additional 1-2 minutes.
  4. Add the wine, and once simmering, cook for 4-5 minutes or until reduced. Next, add the tomato paste and cook for an additional minute.
  5. Add the pumpkin and stir through until well combined.
  6. Stir through the creme fraiche and grated cheese until well combined. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
  7. Remove from heat, and using a stick or emersion blender, blitz the sauce until smooth.
  8. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Once boiling, cook the pasta according to the packet instructions.
  9. Reserve 60ml (1/4 cup) of the pasta water and stir through the pumpkin sauce.
  10. Toss the pasta through the sauce and serve.

What I Cook With

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Nutrition Information:

Yield:

4

Serving Size:

1
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 539Total Fat: 33gSaturated Fat: 17gTrans Fat: 1gUnsaturated Fat: 14gCholesterol: 75mgSodium: 268mgCarbohydrates: 44gFiber: 4gSugar: 6gProtein: 12g

Please note, this nutrition information is to be used as a guide only. Nutrition information isn’t always accurate.

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© Bry
Cuisine: American / Category: Pasta
pumpkin pasta

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Creamy Pumpkin Pasta

pumpkin pasta

Heat Wave

I had every intention of doing something productive with my weekend, but instead I ended up baking choc chip pumpkin cookies. You know how it goes – one minute you’re roasting pumpkin for something wholesome, and the next you’re elbows-deep in cookie dough, and staring at a bowl of leftover pumpkin wondering what on earth to do with it. So, in the middle of a classic Brisbane heatwave, I leaned into full autumnal mode and made a creamy pumpkin pasta sauce. Yes, I sweated through it. And yes, it was completely worth it.

That’s one of the quirks of recipe writing – sometimes you’re cooking things wildly out of season, pretending it’s a crisp October evening when in reality the fan is blasting and your cat is spread out on the kitchen tiles. Even though Brisbane was melting, this creamy pasta gave me all the cosy vibes I was craving. It’s comfort food at its best, no matter what the thermometer says. Honestly, I’m not sure my cravings have ever been in sync with the weather.

Even now, back in Australia, I still sometimes pretend I’m in the UK. Cosy blanket, hot cup of green tea, comforting bowl of pasta… and if I squint hard enough, maybe even a little drizzle on the window. Creamy pumpkin pasta is the kind of dish that lets you sink into the moment. It’s comforting, it’s easy, and it makes you forget (briefly) that it’s 34 degrees outside.

My Relationship with Pasta

TikTok has a lot to answer for, but The Pasta Queen? I’ll allow it. Her cookbook is just as fabulous as her dramatic, sweeping reels, and every time she says “Just Gorgeous” I find myself nodding along like she’s talking about me. But here’s the catch – I’m celiac. So while I’d love to dive into all those pasta shapes she makes look so dreamy, most of them are completely off limits.

Shopping for gluten free pasta is like going on a treasure hunt with no map. You become an expert label-reader, a brand tester, and occasionally a pasta hoarder. At the moment I’ve got gluten free rigatoni from Woolies on rotation, which is honestly pretty decent. But farfalle? Risoni? Forget it. And don’t even whisper the words gluten free pappardelle unless you’re bringing it over with a glass of wine and a hug.

Still, my pasta love story lives on. I’ve got so many recipes I’m determined to adapt, from cheesy bakes to zesty pasta salads. And this creamy pumpkin pasta sauce? Total experiment – total win. It’s one of those dishes that reminds me why I bother – rich, balanced, and full of flavour, despite the limited pasta choices. I might not be able to twirl tagliatelle like The Pasta Queen, but I can absolutely smash out a weeknight pasta that tastes like a hug.

Cooking in Australia vs the UK

Being back in Australia after so long in the UK has been a bit of a culinary adjustment. Ingredients, seasons, even the vibe in the kitchen – it’s all a little different. Autumn in the UK meant foggy windows, big pots of soup, and living in oversized jumpers. Here in Brisbane, autumn is basically late summer with better lighting. Still, that doesn’t stop me from leaning into all the comforting recipes I loved over there.

I do miss a few things – proper double cream, cheap herbs, the chill in the air that makes a roast dinner feel like a good idea. But Australia has its perks too. The fresh produce is beautiful, the sunshine is constant (great for photos), and gluten free options are surprisingly solid. You just have to adjust, and maybe turn the air con on full blast when you’re trying to pretend it’s stew weather.

Creamy pumpkin pasta definitely fits better in a cool, drizzly setting, but it still holds its own here. It’s the kind of dish that brings calm, even if the weather outside is saying salad. Swap heavy cream for creme fraiche, pair it with something fresh, or just embrace the contrast. Some dinners are about comfort, not climate.

Ingredients Breakdown

This dish kicks off with roasted pumpkin, sliced thick and caramelised just enough to get that rich, sweet depth of flavour. That’s your base. Next up, diced onion and garlic get sautéed in olive oil to build that soft, savoury backbone. Once everything’s golden and fragrant, in goes a splash of dry white wine to lift and balance it all out. I used the rest of the bottle for a cheeky glass while I stirred.

Tomato paste adds a little body and richness, and then creme fraiche swoops in to bring everything together with a silky finish that’s not too heavy. Stir through some grated Reggiano Parmigiano – or whatever hard Italian cheese you’ve got in the fridge – and it all comes together in a sauce that’s mellow, a bit tangy, and very, very moreish. Maldon sea salt flakes and freshly cracked black pepper round it all out.

As for the pasta, I went with gluten free rigatoni, but honestly, anything with a bit of shape or texture will do. You want something that’ll catch that creamy sauce and hold it tight. I cooked the pasta just shy of al dente and tossed it straight into the sauce with a splash of pasta water to bring it all together. No fuss. No perfection. Just really good pasta that makes you feel like maybe everything is going to be okay.

pumpkin pasta
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Bry is the food writer and recipe developer behind Cooking with Bry, a recipe platform built on nearly thirty years of cooking experience and over 215 original recipes spanning classic Australian, British, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisine. She grew up in Western Sydney, where food was never just food. It was Aussie barbecues in the backyard, Middle Eastern bakeries down the road, and Mediterranean kitchens that treated every meal like an occasion. That early, immersive exposure to bold and diverse flavours shaped her palate and her cooking instincts in ways that underpin every recipe she develops today. She spent seven years living in the UK across London and Glasgow, deepening her understanding of British comfort food and traditional European cooking before returning to Australia via Adelaide, the country's undisputed foodie capital, where a passion for exceptional produce and honest, ingredient-led cooking only grew stronger. She's now based in Brisbane, developing and testing all of her recipes from her home kitchen. All of that, Western Sydney, the UK, Adelaide, Brisbane, and everywhere in between, feeds directly into what she cooks and how she writes about it. Her recipes pull from the traditions she knows most deeply, the food that feels like home, and are developed with the home cook firmly in mind. Honest, unfussy, and built around flavours that actually work.
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