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This pumpkin butter has an interesting backstory. We recently sent one of our cows to the butcher, so I was told to clean out my appropriated corner in our deep freezer to make room for the meat that we’ll be picking up soon. Last year (or maybe it was the year before…) I had baked a pumpkin, used the seeds, and put the baked pumpkin flesh in the freezer “for later.” What could I make with 12 cups of pumpkin?? Pumpkin butter was the first thing that came to mind, so I took the idea and ran with it. Much to my surprise, it worked perfectly! Now I have a THM: Fuel Pull condiment to use on toast, cottage cheese, pancakes, baked oatmeal…anything! It’s great on the Ginger Peach Oatmeal Cake I posted last week, and I’m sure it would be the perfect addition to this Jumbo Pumpkin Pie Pancake!
I don’t know if this recipe would work with canned pumpkin puree or not. I imagine that it would be a lot stronger and thicker – maybe too thick. If anyone tries it, please let me know how it turns out! I think a safer idea would be to buy a pumpkin (preferably a pie pumpkin), bake it in the oven in a big roaster pan (covered) until tender, then scoop the flesh out and use it in this recipe.
Pumpkin butter is a lot like apple butter, only pumpkin-flavored. When I tasted it, I thought it needed some acid to round out the flavors, so I added some apple cider vinegar. This gives it the perfect twang that really complements the spices. Please feel free to add more or less sweetener and/or spices to suit your own personal tastes.
This recipe makes a lot of pumpkin butter – about 9 cups! I used a big crockpot like this one to cook it down to the perfect spreadable consistency. I’m just keeping my pumpkin butter in the fridge, but I’m sure you could freeze it for longer-term storage. Canning pumpkin butter is actually not recommended – click here to read someone else’s well-written post with an explanation about why not. (Please note that this is an edit of the original post after one of my kind readers informed me that canning pumpkin butter isn’t recommended. Shows how much I know….)
Trim Healthy Mamas, this pumpkin butter is a Fuel Pull, so you can eat it with any meal type! If you’re interested in an apple butter recipe, here’s one that I tried and blogged about quite a while ago (it would be an E).
Pictured on Homemade Bread toast
As always, check out the Notes section of the recipe below for answers to FAQs. Refer to the Suggested Products section below the recipe to find links to the products I use and recommend!
Other pages you might enjoy:
- 12 c. baked pumpkin flesh
- 4 tsp. cinnamon
- 2 tsp. each ginger, salt
- 2 tsp. molasses
- 2 tsp. vanilla extract
- ½ tsp. each chili powder, ground cloves, nutmeg
- ¼ tsp. THM Pure Stevia Extract Powder
- -
- ¼ c. apple cider vinegar
- 2 T THM Super Sweet Blend (or more, to taste)
- Cook the first set of ingredients together in a crockpot on high for two hours, stirring occasionally.
- Blend the mixture together in a high-powdered blender until smooth (be very careful when blending hot stuff like this and vent your blender as needed; alternately you could try using an immersion blender). Return it to the crockpot. Whisk in the apple cider vinegar and Sweet Blend, then taste and add more cinnamon and/or sweetener if desired. Cook on high (with the crockpot lid left open a crack to let water evaporate) for 3 hours or until the desired consistency is reached, stirring occasionally.
- Store the pumpkin butter in the fridge (freezing it would probably work too, but canning pumpkin butter is not recommended because it is often too dense to be heated properly).
- Update 5 months later - I just discovered that I still have a jar of this pumpkin butter in my fridge and it's still good, so I guess that tells you how well it keeps.
Suggested Products:
Second of your recipes I found tonight that will be on next weeks menu. I thought I saw ginger as an ingredient when I went to Pin it, but not here. Did you use or not? If so, powder or fesh? Thanks.
I made the recipe as written in the blog post. 🙂 “2 tsp. each ginger, salt” – that means 2 teaspoons each of ginger (dry, ground) and salt.
I made this about 2 years ago and just used the last of the 2-cup portions of it from my freezer. I scooped it into quart sized freezer bags and laid them flat to freeze. So now I just started another batch in my crockpot and am looking forward to the amazing smells that will soon be coming from my crockpot. Thanks for the recipe!
I’m glad it froze well!
Love all things pumpkin. Now I just need to make a trip to the pumpkin patch in a few weeks and make your on plan version. So excited to find this today..
Hi Briana!
What do you typically eat with you Pumpkin butter? Trying to be more creative with it!
My favorite way to eat it is on on-plan toast, but I also enjoy it on pancakes and cottage cheese. 🙂
Briana, do you cook the pumpkin before you do first cooking in crockpot?
I bake a pumpkin until soft, then remove the seeds, scoop out the flesh, and use that in the pumpkin butter. 🙂
This sounds wonderful! Thank you for all of your help and expense for us THMers. Please send out a note of your favorite products and where to buy them again or link me to one you’ve done before so I can help support you in your journey to provide yummy recipes for all of us. My husband and I enjoy your cookbook.
Blessings, Nina
Hi Nina! Thank you so much for your sweet comment! I’m so happy you and your husband enjoy the recipes. Here’s a page with a lot of the products I purchase: https://www.briana-thomas.com/starting-trim-healthy-mama/
How many pumpkins yields 12 cups cooked, do you think? Do you remember how many you used? I have a subtle feeling I’m going to be needing all 12 cups, MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA….
It was basically one medium-largish pumpkin. 🙂
I’m going to be brave and try the canned pumpkin puree! 🙂 But is it correct that I use 12 CUPS?? I just want to clarify. It looks so yummy!
I honestly would not recommend that. The recipe does call for 12 cups, but 12 cups of baked pumpkin flesh (which isn’t as strong as canned pumpkin puree in my experience). But hey, it’s your choice! 😉
Did you try this with the puree?
sounds YUMMY
LOVE this idea!! Only have a quick question…would this border on an E? I’ve read that pumpkin is a starchy veggie, ( maybe middle of the road? )and not suitable for S. What do you think of this?
By the way, as it is fall and we are going to have access to pumpkins, I am going to try this!! Thanks so much! 🙂
From what I’ve heard, pumpkin is a nonstarchy. 🙂 Some winter squashes like butternut are starchier and need to be kept to 1/2 c. portions in an S setting.
Awesome! I’ve been wanting a THM pumpkin butter recipe! You’re truly the BEST, Briana, and I can’t wait for your cookbook!
Would you ever believe… Saturday I, too, found frozen pumpkin flesh of questionable age in my freezer. It’s probably half the amount you found, but I had not clue what to do with the (now thawed) container of orange pulp. Thanks!