Dinner in a Pumpkin Recipe
This Dinner in a Pumpkin recipe is a 30-year old tradition our house. I cannot remember when I started making it, but I know it’s been on our table around Halloween for many years. It is one of the best healthy dinner recipes I swear by!
My oldest son is 31 years old and to the best of my knowledge we have been enjoying Dinner in a Pumpkin each fall season as long as he has been eating table food. Boy, that was a long time ago. All three of my kids and even their significant others still enjoy eating this every October or November.
This is an easy dinner recipe that everyone will love. It’s full of great flavors that are family friendly and the presentation is fun and festive.
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Most people don’t think about cooking in, let alone eating, the same pumpkins you can turn into jack-o-lanterns. Pumpkin is an amazing vegetable, that tastes great cooked and is very good for you.
Orange vegetables are full of fiber, betacarotene and vitamin A, just to name a few of its benefits.
What’s really great about this recipe, if you have younger kids, you can use acrylic paint to decorate the pumpkin before baking and have a dinner in a jack-o-lantern if you choose to decorate.
Dinner in a Pumpkin Recipe
The recipe is very simple and takes about 30 mins of prep and 1 hour of cooking time. Your kids will be thrilled to see a pumpkin on the table for dinner.
Scoop it out and enjoy! Do you have any family traditions you follow in the fall or for Halloween? Let us know what happens in your home.
Here are some kitchen essentials that I like to have on hand when making recipes like this:
Making tasty treats is a breeze with these kitchen essentials. Keeping things like this on hand makes my life so much easier in the kitchen.
Some things that are great to have on hand when prepping recipes like this is a cutting board, sharp knives, and storage containers.
You can also benefit from baking pans, a kitchen scale, measuring cups, and these mixing bowls!!
Here’s what you’ll need to make this tasty pumpkin dinner:
You will need some really simple ingredients that will probably surprise you a little if you’ve never made this recipe before.
You can find the full amounts and list of ingredients along with approximate nutritional info in the printable recipe card at the bottom of the post.
To make dinner in a pumpkin you will need a small round pumpkin. I try to find one that sits pretty flat and seems symmetrical so it’s easy to clean it and fill it without it baking funny!
You will also need extra lean ground beef that is browned with onions, mushrooms, and garlic if so desired. You can also leave those out if you want to or don’t like those flavors.
Finally you will also need some soy sauce, brown sugar, and cooked rice along with some cream of celery soup. You can use whatever kind of rice you like. I usually use whole grain rice if I have it on hand but white rice will work fine too!
There’s nothing fancy happening, the magic is in the pumpkin! All of these simple ingredients come together to make a really delicious casserole style dinner that cooks inside the pumpkin!
How to make this tasty Weight Watchers dinner:
Wash the outside of the pumpkin.
Cut top of the pumpkin off and remove the seeds and pulp.
Fill hollowed out pumpkin with meat mixture and bake on a cookie sheet at 350 degrees for one hour.
Pumpkin should be soft.
Scoop out onto plates and enjoy!
Can you believe that it’s that easy to make this simple meal?! Everything really does just go into the pumpkin to create a tasty meal. The pumpkin gets perfectly seasoned from the fillings and everything is mouthwatering and delicious.
Can I eat the pumpkin too?
Yes! You can also eat the pumpkin. We don’t eat the shell.
You’ll see, once it’s done cooking the outer skin is like a shell. The inner pumpkin flesh will pull away easily and it’s simple to scoop out and make part of your meal!
If you have ever made a spaghetti squash it’s a very similar process when you are scooping out the flesh and leaving behind the shell. The skin of the pumpkin will be hard like the skin of a spaghetti squash and that part just gets tossed or composted!
Weight Watchers info for dinner in a pumpkin:
This recipe has been calculated for the myWW programs on September 21, 2020. If you would like to reduce the points I have some suggestions!
To reduce the points for each serving (10 total including the pumpkin) you can use ground chicken breast or ground turkey breast, Truvia brown sugar, less soy sauce, and less cream of celery soup.
As it’s written the points are as listed above for each myWW+ plan. It’s a great meal and very filling but it’s definitely possible to lighten it up and reduce those points down a good bit! Feel free to make changes to suit your needs and let us know how you enjoy your dinner in a pumpkin in the comments!
Looking for other delicious Weight Watchers dinner recipes?
Here are some other delicious meals that you can enjoy this fall. These tasty recipes are perfect for fall and have all the pumpkin goodness you are looking for in a fall Weight Watchers recipe.
- Weight Watchers Pumpkin Bars Recipe
- Self Crust Pumpkin Pie For Weight Watchers
- Weight Watchers Baked Apples Recipe
- Easy Chicken Bowls Recipe
- Weight Watchers Beef and Broccoli Recipe
- Weight Watchers Salmon Sheet Pan Dinner Recipe
Printable Recipe for this easy dinner recipe:
You can print this delicious recipe for use whenever you like! We make this in the fall when pumpkins are readily available but you can eat them whenever you like if you have pumpkins!
The whole recipe makes approximately 5 cups. You may need to double the batch for a bigger crowd or a bigger pumpkin!
We usually end up making at least 2 pumpkins full for feeding the whole family and sending home some leftovers to enjoy throughout the week!
Dinner in a Pumpkin Recipe
This Dinner in a Pumpkin recipe is a 30-year old tradition our house. I cannot remember when I started making it, but I know it's been on our table around Halloween for many years.
Ingredients
- Small round pumpkin
- 2 lbs lean ground beef browned with onions, mushrooms and garlic. Drained
- To Stir in meat
- ¼ cup soy sauce
- 3 Tbsp Brown Sugar
- 3 cups cooked rice
- 3 10.75 cans cream of celery soup.
Instructions
- Wash the outside of the pumpkin.
- Cut top of the pumpkin off and remove the seeds and pulp.
- Fill hollowed out pumpkin with meat mixture and bake on a cookie sheet at 350 degrees for one hour.
- Pumpkin should be soft.
- Scoop out onto plates and enjoy!
Nutrition Information
Yield 10 Serving Size 1Amount Per Serving Calories 773Total Fat 38gSaturated Fat 13gTrans Fat 1gUnsaturated Fat 22gCholesterol 125mgCarbohydrates 54gFiber 4gSugar 13gProtein 51g
As with any of our recipes, carb counts, calorie counts, WW points and nutritional information varies greatly. As a result, your nutritional content depends on which products you choose to use when cooking this dish. The auto-calculation is just an automated estimate and should NOT be used for specific dietary needs.
This post is in no way authorized or associated with the Weight Watchers Program.
The filling is similar to what we call Junque in our family. The main difference is that I cook the meat with onions and add some mixed veggies and use Oregano and rosemary instead of the sugar. And we use Cream of Mushroom interchangeably with the Cream of Celery. I never thought of putting it in a pumpkin though. Thanks for this! I’ll have to try it like this the next time the family gets together!
Sounds fabulous! Thanks!
I boil some cubed potatoes and rough-chop them into meat filling. Add sage and cinnamon and mix well. Great taste!
How much mushrooms and onions do you add to the ground beef mixture?
You can add as much or as little to season the meat to your liking. I change it each time based on who is eating with us. Some of my kids and their spouses don’t like mushrooms so we adjust the recipe as needed. The onions and mushrooms and even the garlic are all there just to help season the ground beef so you can add them to your liking / tastes.
I would like to make this today. Are you supposed to tear chunks of the baked pumpkin off after it is cooked and eat the pumpkin too? Looks like that would be good, just want to make sure.
Yes! Yes! Eat the pumpkin It’s delicious and nutritious! Thanks and enjoy.
This is one of my favorite things to cook. As a teacher we celebrate Halloween every year in our class. Everyone brings in an ingredient for the meal. All PUMPKIN! Pumpkin bread, pumpkin cookies, etc. We get the biggest pumpkin we can find, that will fit in the oven and go to town! We are able to feed more than 30 people and have leftovers! It is absolutely delicious, we’ve even used venison! It was my classroom tradition for years and now that I’m retired I make this meal for all my sisters.
Ah… what a great tradition. Thanks for sharing.
I’m thinking this would be a fun meal for young cooks to make. The problem is you are very loose with the directions. You say “2 lbs lean ground beef browned with onions, mushrooms and garlic. Drained”, but, there are no instructions on how much onion, garlic or mushrooms. Are they all placed in the skillet and browned together or separately?
Thanks for stopping by. I brown my meat, small chopped onion, 2 cloves of garlic and 8 oz sliced mushrooms all in the same pan.
Is this a regular pumpkin or pie pumpkin? Does it matter?
It’s a pumpkin you could carve into a jack o lantern. A pie pumpkin to me looks like a gourd, we call them neck pumpkins. So different areas must call them different things. You can eat any pumpkin so I am sure whichever you choose will be fine. THANKS
Could you use smaller pumpkins for individual servings? I think it would be neat to eat it directly from the pumpkin.
Yes smaller pumpkins would be great. You may have to adjust your baking time. I’ve also had someone tell me they’ve baked the recipe inside a butternut squash too! Enjoy!
We always use individual pumpkins and everyone loves it. When the kids were young we made a big deal out of going to a pumpkin patch and choosing our own pumpkin.
What a great idea! Thank you for sharing!
Wow definitely different! And what a nice tradition!
Thanks for linking up with Welcome Home Wednesdays! Live every Wednesday at 7AM CT.
liz @ j for joiner
Such a neat idea! Thanks for sharing with the Delicious Dishes Recipe party!
Thanks for sharing this old family recipe, I will definitely try it this weekend!
Emese
Wow, really cool! This looks like one fabulous recipe!! I love fall inspired food! 🙂 I would love for you to stop over and say hello!
Cathy
Thanks Cathy! I will be stopping by!
LOVE it! But I do have a question. How much of the now cooked pumpkin’s meat do you eat in this meal? Can you/do you save the leftover pumpkin meat for another meal? I know there are things like pumpkin chili you could make. I will have to give this a try once I decide what to do with the leftover pumpkin. I hate wasting good food.
Oh and I use the guts to make pumpkin bread an roasted pumpkin seeds too.
i would take the left over pumpkin scoop out the pulp. cut into small pieces and add to my dog food. i freeze it and make homemade dog food so this would be great to add to her food.
Great idea!
What a cute tradition! We always make a day of going out to the pumpkin patch to pick our jack o lantern, but this year I think we’ll have to get a pumpkin to eat as well.
Thanks, Mer! We have been enjoying dinner in a pumpkin for over 20 years! Hopefully our kids will pass on the family tradition!