Kids' new favourite: Pasta with pumpkin sauce revolution

Noodle ribbons coated in a velvety sauce vanish from children's plates faster than nuggets with ketchup. It’s hard to say what specifically grabs their attention: perhaps it's the colour of the sauce or maybe its taste. Either way, they devour it eagerly.

You can work wonders with pumpkin, yet we often limit ourselves to cream soup or sandwich spread. A dish that my children adore is (of course) pasta with pumpkin sauce. I prepare it in no time, and for more discerning diners, I serve it with feta or Parmesan cheese and roasted pumpkin seeds.

Pasta with pumpkin can be modified to your liking. I enjoy enhancing the sauce's flavour with sun-dried tomatoes, but if your children aren’t fans of such additions, skip them and focus on something that will catch their attention. Perhaps a bit of melted cheese on top? It’s not the healthiest choice, but it's worth it if it encourages the children to try something more than nuggets.

Before you prepare pasta with pumpkin, you should ensure you have pumpkin purée ready. Preparing this delicacy, as you might imagine, is straightforward. Simply bake or boil the pumpkin cut into pieces until soft (baking will give the purée a richer flavour). Then, blend the cooked pumpkin. That’s all. You can use any variety of pumpkin to prepare pasta with pumpkin sauce.

Ingredients:

• 100 g pasta, e.g., tagliatelle,
• 100 g pumpkin purée,
• a small onion,
• 2 garlic cloves,
• 200 ml broth or pasta cooking water,
• salt, pepper, oregano, sweet paprika,
• 6 sun-dried tomatoes,
• green onion/basil/parsley,
• olive oil or rapeseed oil.

Preparation:

1. Cook the pasta according to the package instructions.
2. Chop the onion and slice the garlic thinly. Sauté the onion in olive oil or rapeseed oil until translucent, then add the garlic. Cook until the garlic softens.
3. Next, add the sun-dried tomatoes cut into strips, oregano, and ground paprika. Stir and cook the mixture for a few minutes.
4. Then add pumpkin purée and broth - enough to achieve the desired sauce consistency. You can also use pasta cooking water instead of broth.
5. Add the pasta to the sauce, stir well, and season with salt, pepper, and chopped herbs.
6. You can serve the pasta with pumpkin with roasted pumpkin seeds and a spoonful of grated Parmesan or feta cheese.