by Texas Homesteader ~ 

I like to dehydrate fresh pumpkin. It’s so easy to do, y’all. And unlike using the freezer, dehydrated pumpkin uses no additional energy to store. Come see what I did!

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Fresh Pumpkin Harvest

Last year’s garden included a very robust pumpkin harvest! When the season was over I harvested all those pumpkins and brought them inside before the first frost. But there were just so many!

I gave several fresh pumpkins to family & friends and used the remaining pumpkins for fall decoration purposes. One by one I cooked & pureed the pumpkins, using them in my Pumpkin Granola or other dishes.

But here we are months later and I’m staring at those two remaining pumpkins. And RancherMan’s filled our freezer with so much wild pork that there’s no room to spare there.

But when providing that garden pumpkin starts with planting the seed, you make sure none is wasted! I decided to cook & dehydrate the two remaining pumpkins & store ’em in my pantry instead.

How To Cook Fresh Pumpkin In The Oven

I started off by cutting the pumpkin in half and scooping out the seeds and membranes.

Since these sugar-pie pumpkins are heirloom I typically save some of the seeds to replant next season in my garden.

After the pumpkins are cut & cleaned out it’s time to cook it up.

First I retrieve my large, vintage covered roaster. The two pumpkin halves are placed cut-side down in the roaster and I add a cup or two of water. This will steam the pumpkin to cook it.

To cook the pumpkin in the oven:

• • • 350 degrees Fahrenheit,

    • 45 minutes.

I usually have plenty of time for pumpkin cooking. So instead I typically only cook for 30 minutes & then turn the oven off & let the pumpkin stay in the hot oven to soak up the residual heat until it’s cool to finish cooking.

Oftentimes if the sun is out I’ll use my Solar Oven to Cook The Pumpkin. It’s almost impossible to burn it in the moist environment of a solar oven, so I just put it out there for a couple of hours or so until it’s cooked soft. Then carry on with making the puree.

How To Make Pumpkin Puree

When the pumpkin’s cool I pull the roaster from the oven & scrape the pumpkin meat from the shell.

You can use a heavy spoon but I love to use a large ice cream scoop. The scoop is heavy duty & there’s no fear in bending it if I get a little carried away scooping.

Does anyone else get a little heavy-handed when scooping pumpkin? 
No?  Just me?  Alrighty then!

Now I place that cooked pumpkin into my *Ninja Blender. (have I mentioned how much I love that thing??!!) 

The Ninja will blend it all into a flawless smooth pumpkin puree in no time flat – no lumps!

Can You Dehydrate Cooked Pumpkin Puree?

You betcha! Dehydrating pumpkin puree is so easy!

I plop about 2 cups onto each *Paraflex Sheet for my Excalibur Dehydrator trays and spread it all smoothly.

You’re basically treating this puree the same as you would for Fruit Rollups.

When all the puree has been smoothed onto trays I put them all into my *Excalibur Dehydrator and set the temp to 125 degrees. The pumpkin needs to dehydrate for about 12-14 hours.

So for convenience sake, if I’ve cooked the pumpkin during the day & pureed it at night I can turn the dehydrator on when I go to bed and let it do it’s thing all night.

That’s a lot of hands-off time and I’m lazy, errrr I mean efficient that way!

In the morning I peel off the sheets of dried puree and flip them over to make sure it dries properly on the underside too. Then I let it dehydrate for a few hours more.

All in all to fully dehydrate my pumpkin puree it took about 12 hours for me, but your dehydrator and even the relative humidity in your home could make your time slightly different.

You’re looking to dry the puree until it’s completely dry & brittle, crisp enough to break up easily.

How To Easily Powder Dehydrated Pumpkin

I break up the pieces and drop them into a *coffee grinder I reserve for just this task. A couple of pulses will grind the chunks until they’re once again perfectly powdered – no lumps!

Now that it’s dehydrated and powdered that whole pumpkin doesn’t even fill up a tiny 1/2-pint canning jar!

How To Rehydrate Dehydrated Pumpkin Powder

When it’s time to rehydrate my pumpkin powder for puree use I’ll simply boil some water (4:1 ratio water to pumpkin) and stir in some pumpkin powder.

Some say it needs 15-20 minutes standing time to rehydrate. But in my experience (I suppose because it’s so powdered) my dehydrated pumpkin powder rehydrates in minutes right as I’m stirring in the boiling water.

BOOM!  Pumpkin puree!

It’s a no-waste way to make sure that delightful pumpkin harvest is fully used.

~TxH~

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Other Pumpkin Articles

• Cooking Pumpkin Puree In A Standard Oven
• Cooking Pumpkin Puree In A Solar Oven
• Dehydrating Fresh Pumpkin
• Rehydrating Dehydrated Pumpkin Puree
• Recipe: Pumpkin Granola
• Recipe: Easy Pumpkin Bread

Other Dehydrating Posts

• Preserving The Harvest: Dehydrating Fresh Carrots
• Dehydrating Tomato Sauce Into Leather For Pizza
• Cubed Tomatoes Dehydrated For Winter Cooking
  
• Dehydrating Spinach To Enjoy All Year Long
• Using A Dehydrator To Preserve Fresh Onions
• Dehydrating & Storing Cabbage
• A Solar Oven Dehydrates Jalapenos
• Bell Pepper Dehydration
• Using A Solar Oven To Dehydrate Garden Produce
• Using It ALL – Dehydrating & Powdering Tomato Skins 
• How To Make Dehydrated Blueberry Powder
• Dehydrating Plums
• My Simple, Zero-Waste Herb Drying Setup

See All Our Dehydrating Posts

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