Cheese Stuffed Pumpkin

A baked stuffed pumpkin recipe that is full of cheese, spinach and walnuts.  A great dish for a low carb and gluten-free appetizer or main dish to share for the holidays.

This easy dish can be served as a side dish for the holidays, with the filling spooned out as a creamy sauce or dipped with bread.

The stuffed pumpkins can make a lovely center piece on your holiday table. We use the small ones for appetizers with bread rolls or a salad. The Chief Taster enjoyed this recipe, despite his misgivings about pumpkin dishes, and is now "sleeping it off". That's a good sign in this house.

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Jump to:

• What Type of Pumpkin Can Be Used?
• The Ingredients
• Pumpkin Stuffed with Everything Good
• How to Make Cheese Stuffed Pumpkin
• Storage
• How to Serve Cheese Stuffed Pumpkin
• More Low Carb Holiday Recipes
• Cheese Stuffed Pumpkin

What Type of Pumpkin Can Be Used?

The large colorful carving pumpkins are not suitable for baking whole as they are too watery and thin with flesh. Pumpkins to be used for this recipe are pie pumpkin, kabocha, sugar pumpkins or Cinderella pumpkins.

The pumpkin for this recipe in the photos was a Kabocha and was about 4lbs. Adjust the quantity of the stuffing ingredients for larger or smaller pumpkins.

The Ingredients

You could vary the ingredients and spices in this dish to suit yourself. The red chili flakes are entirely optional but give the dish a small kick of flavour.

The spinach in the recipe card says fresh, but defrosted frozen spinach works just as well.

The cheeses can be varied but use a cheese that melts well for this recipe. Gruyere works well.

Add a dash of white wine to the filling for a holiday treat.

Pumpkin Stuffed with Everything Good

I used cheese, garlic, spinach and walnuts to stuff the pumpkin and it was delicious. Other filling suggestions are:

• Chopped cooked meat such as bacon, ham or chicken.
• Kale can be substituted for the spinach.
• Sliced cooked mushrooms
• Chopped sundried tomatoes.

How to Make Cheese Stuffed Pumpkin

This is a very easy to make and you could prepare this ahead and bake it when you are ready to eat. The larger pumpkin takes about 2 hours but the smaller ones took less time.

Storage

Any leftovers should be stored in the fridge in a sealed container and should last up to 3 days.

How to Serve Cheese Stuffed Pumpkin

This is a versatile pumpkin dish that can be served as a main or like a fondue with the cheesy filling used as a hot dip with low carb breadsticks.

The smaller stuffed pumpkins can be a side dish or an appetizer.

The pumpkin can be used as a shell or you can spoon out the cooked pumpkin with the cheesy filling. It's almost like a fondue.

More Low Carb Holiday Recipes

Cranberry Jalapeno Dip

Stuffed Whole Roasted Celeriac

Cheesy Low Carb Cauliflower Bake

Air Fryer Brussel Sprouts