The Absolute Best Substitute For Actual Pumpkin In Your Recipes

Pumpkin may be ubiquitous in the fall, but outside of its prime season, you may need a substitute since it's not always easy to find. Even during the holidays, fresh pumpkin can become scarcer after the shelves have been cleared for jack-o-lanterns and Thanksgiving pumpkin pies. Add that to the fact that many fresh pumpkins you find are larger decorative varieties instead of the smaller sugar pumpkin that is superior for cooking, and you may find yourself with a lot of pumpkin recipes you love, but no ideal gourd. So Tasting Table went looking for the best pumpkin substitute and decided to ask Jessie-Sierra Ross, a former ballerina turned cooking and home entertaining author and the writer of "Seasons Around the Table; Effortless Entertaining with Floral Tablescapes & Seasonal Recipes" to ask her expert opinion on the quandary.

The good news is that you have a lot of types of squash and pumpkin to choose from and Jessie-Sierra's suggestion is one of the most common, telling us, "butternut squash or their smaller cousins, the honeynut squash, are fantastic substitutes for pumpkins." She explained that "their color, shape, and taste can vary," from your standard pumpkin, but they are close enough relatives that "these types of squashes can be used interchangeably in your next soup or stew recipe that calls for pumpkin." You may not get a perfect 1:1 substitution, but butternut and honeynut squash will still do a solid, satisfying job in pies and baked goods.

While butternut and honeynut squashes don't look a lot like pumpkins, Jessie-Sierra notes that the substitution just "makes sense, since pumpkins are considered a type of squash, and they are both in the Cucurbita family." And this is especially clear if you are cooking using sugar pumpkins, which are smaller in size and have a denser flesh than other pumpkins that is very reminiscent of butternut squash and its offshoots. What's great about substituting butternut squash for pumpkin is that they are close enough in sweetness and texture that you can swap in the squash using the exact same amount as pumpkin puree you were using before, no extra sugar needed.

While Jessie-Sierra's options were focused on fresh pumpkin, there is always the option of canned pumpkin as well. It's easier to find year-round, since almost half the pumpkins in the U.S. are made to be canned, and like some other ingredients (looking at you tomatoes), the canned version can be just as good, especially in baked pumpkin recipes like pie. Canned pumpkin is essentially just preserved pumpkin puree and often has a stronger flavor than fresh pumpkin, with side-by-side tests by chefs often showing no quality drop in pies made with canned pumpkin. So if fresh is what you are after, heed Jessie-Sierra's advice, but don't fret if you have to resort to canned pumpkin, either.