How to cook dinner in a pumpkin the easy way. A very simple recipe for the beginner cook, you can make dinner in a pumpkin and actually like it!

EASY DINNER IN A PUMPKIN RECIPE

There are lots of dinner in a pumpkin recipes out there, but this one is SO easy!

Making a meal in a pumpkin was always on my Fall bucket list, but it seemed complicated and overwhelming.

Until my good friend Alli invited us over her family’s favorite Halloween tradition: Making Dinner in a Pumpkin.

Until now that is. Making your dinner in a pumpkin is actually really easy and won’t take much more effort than making an ordinary dinner would take. Dinner with pumpkin is perfect for a Fall night!

I can say easy because after my friend taught us how she did it, we’ve made it every year since. I love having dinner planned for me!

INGREDIENTS:

This recipe for dinner in a pumpkin calls for basic ingredients you probably have in your kitchen.

While I’m not usually one for cream soups in recipes, this is one exception. If you don’t like using cream soups, try this dinner in a pumpkin recipe without cream soup.

small to medium pumpkin
ground beef
cooked rice
mushrooms
water chestnuts
Cream of Chicken soup
soy sauce
brown sugar

The great thing about this dinner is you can prep most of the ingredients ahead of time, so when you are ready to cook, you can just throw everything into the pumpkin quickly.

HOW TO DRAW A PUMPKIN STEP-BY-STEP

Here’s how you can draw a pumpkin face on your pumpkin!

TIME-SAVING PUMPKIN DINNER TIPS

You can have the rice, ground beef or chicken already cooked a day or two early. Keep it in the rridge until the day of.

I don’t know about you, but dinner time is always crazy. So I love cleaning my pumpkin the morning we are going to eat it. Once the seeds are cleaned out and the jack-o-lantern face is drawn on, I just keep it in the fridge until prep time.

With your pumpkin cleaned and prepped, you’ll just mix all the ingredients together to make a casserole-type dish. Scoop it inside the pumpkin and bake in the oven for about 1 hour until the pumpkin meat is tender.

Enjoy this dinner in a pumpkin recipes.

WHAT TO SERVE WITH DINNER IN A PUMPKIN

While the meal is cooking inside the pumpkin, set your table and finish preparing side dishes.

Dinner in a Pumpkin

Total Time: 1 hour 20 minutes
Yield: 6 servings 1x

Print Recipe

Description

Cooking dinner in a pumpkin is easier than you think with this simple, family-friendly recipe!

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Ingredients

Scale

1 small to medium pumpkin (always go with smaller and round so that it will fit in your oven)
1 onion, chopped
1 ½ to 2 lbs. ground beef
2 Tbsp. soy sauce
2 Tbsp. brown sugar
4 oz canned or fresh mushrooms, sliced
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 ½ cups cooked rice
8 oz water chestnuts, drained

Instructions

Cut off the top of the pumpkin and thoroughly clean out the seeds and pulp. Paint a Jack-O-Lantern face with a permanent marker.
Preheat oven to 350.
In a large fry pan, saute onions with ground beef until browned. Drain any fat. Add in soy sauce, brown sugar, mushrooms, and soup. Simmer 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add in cooked rice and water chestnuts.
Spoon the mixture into the pumpkin shell. Replace pumpkin top and place entire filled pumpkin on a baking sheet.
Bake 1 hour or until meat of the pumpkin is tender. Put pumpkin on a platter to serve.

Notes

Cook the meat ahead of time to save you time on the night of.

Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour
Category: Main Dish

Keywords: dinner in pumpkin, Halloween, pumpkin dinner recipes, meal in a pumpkin

*Original recipe from Allison Grow.