Hokkaido pumpkin soup and what to do with the rest of the pumpkin

Hokkaido pumpkin soup is the first sign that summer is over. And most recipes make it the same way: pumpkin, cream, and a bit more cream. Yet Hokkaido has such creamy flesh that it makes a thick, velvety soup all on its own. In our meal plans, pumpkin turns up in everything from soup and risotto to baked quark, so here's a round-up of the best, with timings.

How to make Hokkaido soup without a litre of cream

The most important thing nobody tells you about Hokkaido: you don't have to peel it. The skin goes completely soft when you cook or roast it and blends in without a trace. That's exactly why Hokkaido is the quickest choice of all pumpkins for soup.

You can get a creamy texture in two ways. The first is the classic: simmer the pumpkin with onion and stock, then blend. The second has more flavour: roast the chunks first, the flavour concentrates, and the soup is sweeter and fuller even without cream. If you do want something creamy, coconut milk works better than cream and goes with pumpkin flavour-wise too.

We have two soup versions in the studio: Hokkaido, courgette and carrot cream soup (35 minutes) and Pumpkin cream soup with orange (45 minutes), where the citrus does exactly what cream can't: it brightens the soup up.

A creamy pumpkin stew that fills you up like a main course

Soup is nice, but on its own it won't keep you going until dinner. So our autumn favourite is the Light creamy pumpkin stew with beef meatballs: creamy, thick and with a proper portion of protein, 561 kcal and 35 g P per portion, ready in 50 minutes. Our members had it in their meal plan at the end of August as a Monday lunch.

A tip straight from the recipe, in italics just as we have it in the studio: If the stew is too thin after you add the coconut milk, let it simmer for a few more minutes without a lid. If it gets too thick, thin it with a little hot water.

Pumpkin risotto and other main courses

After soup, risotto is the second most searched-for pumpkin dish, and rightly so. The pumpkin cooks down into a cream, so the risotto is silky even with less cheese. In the studio you'll find Pumpkin risotto with Pecorino (35 minutes), a version with grilled meat (40 minutes) and a vegan one with tofu (40 minutes).

When you want more from pumpkin than something to eat with a spoon, these work too: Pumpkin gnocchi with bryndza and crispy smoked ham (55 minutes), Pumpkin rigatoni with feta (30 minutes) or slow-cooked Beef with carrot and Hokkaido and rice (100 minutes, most of it simmering away on its own). And if you like pulses, the Pumpkin and lentil curry (35 minutes) brings together pumpkin and red lentils, which we write about in the article on lentil soup.

Sweet pumpkin: yes, we mean it

Pumpkin works in sweet dishes just like courgette in summer: it adds moisture and volume, and you can barely taste it. Pumpkin muffins with apples take 35 minutes, Pumpkin gingerbread 45 and Pumpkin spice baked quark 35. That last one is our favourite trick for combining an autumn flavour with protein from quark, which we cover in our quark recipes. For a quick morning, there's Pumpkin overnight oats with roasted pear (15 minutes).