Savory Pumpkin Dip
This Savory Pumpkin Dip is a new way to eat pumpkin that doesn’t involve anything sweet. Dig some crackers into this creamy dip made with cream cheese and Parmesan.
It’s that time of year when people (food bloggers especially) lose their minds over all things pumpkin. Except me. For most of my life, I really didn’t care for pumpkin (give me some chocolate Halloween bark or stuffed apples instead!).
Young Lori had a nauseating experience with the smell of the pumpkin “guts” that had to be extracted from the gourds before carving jack o’lanterns.
Man, doing that task in an unventilated kitchen as opposed to outside in the fresh air was traumatizing. I blame you for this, Mom. Just kidding. I know it was probably too cold to be outside that year. Still love you.
But yeah, for a long time, that smell of raw pumpkin really put me off from eating most pumpkin things except pumpkin creme brulee (because I love any and all creme brulee).
In recent years, I’ve tried to suppress my fear and have tried little nibbles here and there of pumpkin pie and pumpkin cookies. OK, they weren’t half bad. And I actually like fall squash, like sweet dumpling squash soup.
As I’m always more of a fan of savory rather than sweet, I started branching out and experimenting with pumpkin lasagna and pumpkin quesadillas.
This is where I really hit my stride with pumpkin. Savory was the way to go for me, and now pumpkin and I are on speaking terms again. Heck, you could even consider us friends.
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Not the kind of friends who can drink wine and talk about nothing for hours, but the kind of friends who maybe meet up for coffee once a year. Hey, do you think if I met pumpkin for a coffee, it would order a pumpkin spice latte? No? Anyway . . .
This Savory Pumpkin Dip requires just seven ingredients:
This Savory Pumpkin Dip is the combination of seven simple ingredients. Stir them up, refrigerate the dip for a little bit if you’d like, and then enjoy.
Have it for dinner on Halloween, followed up by Halloween Brownies Ideas. Or add it to the appetizer section of your Thanksgiving recipes list.
Be sure to use good Parmesan cheese for this savory pumpkin dip!
Because the ingredients are so simple, it’s really important to use high-quality ones, especially the cheese. This is not the time for that powdery parmesan sold in cans.
For this dip, I like to use Parmesan cheese. I buy a whole wedge and then shred it up myself. This cheese has a subtle, slightly nutty flavor that pairs perfectly with pumpkin.
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Savory Pumpkin Dip
Ingredients
- 1 garlic clove minced
- 8 ounces cream cheese softened
- ¾ cup pure pumpkin puree
- ¾ cup shredded Stella Parmesan cheese
- 1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh sage
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
- ¼ teaspoon paprika
Instructions
- In medium bowl, whisk garlic, cream cheese, pumpkin, Parmesan cheese, sage, pepper and paprika until very well combined.
- For best flavor, refrigerate 1 hour or up to 3 days. Makes about 1-3/4 cups dip.
Made this as a dip for a party, except my sage plants are dead/dormant and my basil plants are hanging on, so subbed that and added one extra clove of garlic. Now it’s a lovely pumpkin pesto and the leftovers are excellent on pasta.
I’m so glad to hear you liked this dip, Hedda! And happy to know that basil works in place of sage. I love the idea of adding leftovers to pasta 🙂
Thanks for posting this dip recipe. It looks and sounds delicious! Can’t wait to try it. Have you ever had Jacques Pepin’s pumpkin gratin recipe? If not, you really should try it. It is SO good and very quick & easy to make. It has parmesan as well as Swiss cheese in it.
Thanks so much Karen! I’ll be looking up that pumpkin gratin recipe right now. It sounds amazing!
This sounds amazing!! What a fabulous savory pumpkin recipe!
PS- do you use backgrounds in your photos, like a board? How do you make the seam not be seen?
I have been working on getting more and bigger backgrounds and boards so I don’t have to think about it. Make it easy, you know?
Hi Sophia! Thanks so much 🙂
For my backgrounds, I use a small-ish brown-stained wooden board under the setup itself, and then prop a piece of black poster board up in the background. Sometimes, you can see the seam between the brown wood and the black posterboard, but I don’t worry about it too much. In these particular photos, it looks like the kale kind of hid that seam 🙂
I’m all about making it easy for myself, so I don’t have to think about it, either. I have several wooden boards, vinyls, marble slabs, etc., but 95% of the time, I’m defaulting to the setup you see here. If you want more details, feel free to e-mail me and we can chat!