The Ultimate Holiday Dish: Baked Macaroni and Cheese in A Pumpkin

The recipe The Ultimate Holiday Dish: Baked Macaroni and Cheese in A Pumpkin can be made in approximately 1 hour and 50 minutes. One portion of this dish contains around 17g of protein, 33g of fat, and a total of 477 calories. This recipe serves 6. For $1.76 per serving, this recipe covers 21% of your daily requirements of vitamins and minerals. If you have gruyere, pork sausage, fontina cheese, and a few other ingredients on hand, you can make it. Plenty of people made this recipe, and 940 would say it hit the spot. This recipe is typical of American cuisine. It is brought to you by The Culinary Life. It works well as a main course. Taking all factors into account, this recipe earns a spoonacular score of 71%, which is pretty good. If you like this recipe, you might also like recipes such as Ultimate macaroni cheese, Ultimate Macaroni & Cheese, and Ultimate Macaroni and Cheese.

Servings: 6

Preparation duration: 20 minutes

Cooking duration: 90 minutes

 

Ingredients:

Equipment:

Cooking instruction summary:

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Cut a circle from the top of the pumpkin at a 45-degree angle, the way you would cut open a pumpkin to make a jack-o’-lantern, and set aside.Scoop out the seeds and strings as best you can. Generously salt and pepper the inside of the pumpkin, pop the top back on it, place it on a rimmed baking dish (since the pumpkin may leak or weep a bit), and bake for 45 minutes.Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a sauté pan over medium heat. If the sausages are in their casings, remove the meat and discard the casings. Crumble the sausage meat into small chunks and cook until lightly browned. Remove the sausage from the pan with a slotted spoon and set aside to cool. Discard the drippings, or save for gravy or what have you.Also while the pumpkin bakes, cook the pasta in a large pot of salted boiling water until al dente. Drain through a colander and rinse with cool water to stop the cooking process.In a bowl, toss together the Fontina, Gruyère, sausage, pasta, scallions, and herbs.Once the pumpkin is done baking, take it out of the oven and fill it with the macaroni and cheese. Pour the cream over the filling. Place the top back on the pumpkin and bake for 1 hour, taking the top off for the last 15 minutes so the cheese on top of the filling can properly brown. If the top cream still seems a bit too wobbly and liquid, give it another 10 minutes in the oven. The cream may bubble over a bit, which is fine.If the pumpkin splits while baking, as occasionally happens, be thankful you set it in a rimmed baking dish and continue to bake as normal.Allow the pumpkin to rest for 10 minutes before serving. Be careful moving the dish, as the pumpkin may be fragile. You can serve this dish two ways: Cut it into sections and serve them, or just scoop out the insides with scrapings of the pumpkin flesh for each serving. Either way is just dandy. Salt and pepper to taste.Alternative cheeses: Fontina and Gruyère are widely available and are best used for this recipe, but feel free to try your favorite cheese. We particularly like Valley Ford’s Estero Gold or its Highway 1 Fontina, as well as Roth Käse’s MezzaLuna Fontina. If you want to try something radical, a creamy blue cheese like Buttermilk Blue or Cambozola will do nicely too.Wine pairings: white Rhône Valley blends, Viognier, oaky Chardonnay, champagneAdditional pairings for the cheese: apples, toasted walnuts, toasted hazelnuts

 

Step by step:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.

2. Cut a circle from the top of the pumpkin at a 45-degree angle, the way you would cut open a pumpkin to make a jack-o’-lantern, and set aside.Scoop out the seeds and strings as best you can. Generously salt and pepper the inside of the pumpkin, pop the top back on it, place it on a rimmed baking dish (since the pumpkin may leak or weep a bit), and bake for 45 minutes.Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a sauté pan over medium heat. If the sausages are in their casings, remove the meat and discard the casings. Crumble the sausage meat into small chunks and cook until lightly browned.

3. Remove the sausage from the pan with a slotted spoon and set aside to cool. Discard the drippings, or save for gravy or what have you.Also while the pumpkin bakes, cook the pasta in a large pot of salted boiling water until al dente.

4. Drain through a colander and rinse with cool water to stop the cooking process.In a bowl, toss together the Fontina, Gruyère, sausage, pasta, scallions, and herbs.Once the pumpkin is done baking, take it out of the oven and fill it with the macaroni and cheese.

5. Pour the cream over the filling.

Place the top back on the pumpkin and bake for 1 hour, taking the top off for the last 15 minutes so the cheese on top of the filling can properly brown. If the top cream still seems a bit too wobbly and liquid, give it another 10 minutes in the oven. The cream may bubble over a bit, which is fine.If the pumpkin splits while baking, as occasionally happens, be thankful you set it in a rimmed baking dish and continue to bake as normal.Allow the pumpkin to rest for 10 minutes before serving. Be careful moving the dish, as the pumpkin may be fragile. You can serve this dish two ways

1. Cut it into sections and serve them, or just scoop out the insides with scrapings of the pumpkin flesh for each serving. Either way is just dandy. Salt and pepper to taste.Alternative cheeses: Fontina and Gruyère are widely available and are best used for this recipe, but feel free to try your favorite cheese. We particularly like Valley Ford’s Estero Gold or its Highway 1 Fontina, as well as Roth Käse’s Mezza

2. Luna Fontina. If you want to try something radical, a creamy blue cheese like Buttermilk Blue or Cambozola will do nicely too.Wine pairings: white Rhône Valley blends, Viognier, oaky Chardonnay, champagne

3. Additional pairings for the cheese: apples, toasted walnuts, toasted hazelnuts

Nutrition Information:

covered percent of daily need