Apparently it’s carb week! Don’t be scared by that, or by the fact that this carb involves pumpkin 🙂
This week we got hooked up with some pasta products to test out. Along with the food there were a few recipes and one of them was a ravioli with pumpkin alfredo. I didn’t have a lot of the ingredients (including the container of alfredo they sent because I already ate it! Kind of a main ingredient…) but the idea of a pumpkin cream sauce intrigued me so I took the basic idea and went with it. I used my guiltless alfredo sauce, and it worked perfectly. If the idea of mixing pumpkin into a creamy sauce freaks you out, don’t worry- it’s a really mild flavor, but just enough to be interesting and give it a great color. If you’re a big pumpkin fan like I am, you could add a little more. I loved this, and so did my husband and my kids.I paired it with whole wheat 4-cheese ravioli. I thought the whole wheat was a perfect harvest-y thing to go with such a harvest-y dish.
Pasta with Pumpkin Alfredo
1 Package Fresh Pasta
1/2 batch Guiltless Alfredo Sauce
(or 10oz prepared Alfredo)
1/2 T real butter
1/4 C Finely minced onion
1/2 C canned pumpkin (try more if you love pumpkin, this is really mild)
2 T Chicken broth (vegetarians substitute milk or veg. broth)
1T chopped fresh sage (1t dried leaves)
1/2 T fresh thyme (1/2 t dried leaves)
Follow instructions on pasta to cook. In a separate sauce pan melt butter on medium heat. When melted, add onion. Make sure your onion is really finely diced. Since you have a nice smooth sauce, you don’t want big chunks of onion, you just want little bits.
Saute until soft. Since they’re small it should only take a couple of minutes. Add chicken broth and herbs. (I used fresh herbs, but I’m sure dry is great too, just go for leaves as opposed to ground spices so not to muddy the color)
Use a spatula to deglaze the pan a bit and get any cooked bits of onion off the bottom. Add pumpkin and whisk to combine. Add alfredo sauce, stir to combine, and cook until heated through. Depending on the alfredo you use you may need to adjust salt and pepper. Mine didn’t need anything added.
Serve on top of prepared pasta and top with freshly grated Parmesan cheese and a sprinkling of extra herbs. Pair it with a salad and breadsticks for a great vegetarian meal. YUM!
I want to know how you feel about pumpkin pasta! Sound good? Sound weird? And if you’ve never commented before, introduce yourself so we can get to know ya! We love all you guys!
Questions & Reviews
Hmm looks good. I've been wanting pumpkin soup and carbs so this works out just fine. I would've been a little more skeptical had I not made some sweet potato pasta sauce for my toddler and it was surprisingly tasty.
This was incredible! Both my kids loved it so much that they were tasting it long before it got onto the pasta and my fussy eater even ate it the second night which means a lot! I added probably closer to a cup of pumpkin and it was still not too pumpkiny in my opinion. Used your guiltless alfredo too! Thank you for such a great new recipe. First time ever writing on a blog!
For those skeptics out there, TRY THIS! It was so very good! Even my husband, who really doesn't care for pumpkin, really enjoyed this! YUMMY!
This pumpkin alfredo pasta was AMAZING! My husband and I loved it and felt like it was as good or better than anything we had gotten at Italian restaurants!! I also love knowing how to make my own alfredo sauce. I felt like it was much healthier and not hard to make. Love the website-thanks so much for the great recipes!!!!
We made this the other night and used some penne that we had in the cabinet. We got a little over zealous and made a first attempt at the guiltless Alfredo sauce too. Although it all turned out to be pretty good, I feel like we might have left out something in the process. We will defiantly be making the guiltless Alfredo sauce again. Though next time I believe we'll make sure we're in no hurry at all (it was late and we were starving). I also want to say that we LOVE this blog and have found so many great ideas here. Keep up the great work! 🙂
Made this for dinner last night, and your notes were so helpful (you assuaged my fears about making "guiltless" alfredo and whether or not I should put it over ravioli). I think it tastes like the filling of squash ravioli. Delicious!
I stumbled across your website via a Facebook link, and it has become one of my favorites. I'm excited to try this pumpkin alfredo recipe. We purchase a pre-made butternut squash ravioli (frozen) on a regular basis and I'm thinking this sauce would be absolutely divine over it. I'm going to try it this weekend…whatever a perfect fall dish. And quick too!!
Linnea (not Karl!)
Diamond- how funny about your pumpkin pie filling! But, that’s *great* to know it works like that! Your noodles sound fantastic by the way. I bet the purple is so pretty.
This sounded great and we made it the night we made our Cabernet noodles and your alfredo sauce. Except when we opened our pumpkin we realized it was the pie one. We still added a cup of it, and then didn’t use the other seasonings. It was fabulous. I’m sure we will try it with plain pumpkin and your spices at some point, but this worked for us.
BEST idea I’ve seen all day, hands down. I am so trying this!