Fresh vs. Canned Pumpkin: I put them to the test!
People say fresh pumpkin is so much better than canned, so in today’s post I put them head to head and did a pumpkin pie blind taste test to draw my conclusions!
Is fresh pumpkin worth the effort, or should you just used canned pumpkin?
A few nights ago I laid in bed, eyes wide open, pondering that very question (because thinking about food before bed is way more fun than counting sheep).
For the longest time I had never bothered to use anything other than canned pumpkin. Mostly because so many recipes just say to use canned pumpkin by default. It seems like the common thing to do.
I mean seriously, which do we all WANT to be better? The canned pumpkin, obviously. All you have to do is open a can. It’s so quick and simple. Fresh pumpkin requires extra work.
But hey now, it’s not that much extra work, and I decided that it was time to see if the extra work is worth it. This extra work is basically just to cut the pumpkin in half, scoop out the seeds, roast, and puree. Not difficult at all. So I set out to compare the two, to figure out whether fresh or canned pumpkin is the way to go.
In order to test, I first had to prep the pumpkin (make sure you buy a designated sugar or pie pumpkin). I scooped the seeds out with a melon baller (much like I did with my Maple Butter Roasted Acorn Squash). Save the seeds if you want to make roasted pumpkin seeds.
Place the pumpkin halves on a sheet pan to roast until tender.
Scoop the roasted pumpkin from the skin, and puree in a food processor until smooth, like this:
Once I had the pumpkin puree cooked like this, my husband and I both did a blind taste test.
Here were my notes:
- WOW pumpkin is not sweet at all. We think of it as sweet because it’s often used in desserts, but this stuff needs some sugar!
- Both of these pumpkin purees taste far too yucky to tell which one is better, at this point. No more tasting until I add some sugar.
- For now I will observe with my eyes, and I noted that the colors are very different.
So what I did is I made the exact same recipe for pumpkin pie, except I used the fresh pumpkin puree for one, and the canned pumpkin puree for the other.
This was the canned pumpkin mix:
And this was the fresh:
I stirred it all together, and here you can see the canned pumpkin mixture on the left, and the fresh on the right.
They vary quite a bit in color, don’t they?
Here’s where my husband and I did another blind taste test, tasting the raw pumpkin pie filling (sweetened up this time).
Blind Taste Test #2 Notes:
- This stuff tastes so much better with all the ingredients mixed in!
- It is now painfully obvious which one is the canned and which one is the fresh, even though my eyes are closed and I don’t know which is which. There is a weird flavor with the canned pumpkin that now that I notice it, is pretty off-putting.
Here’s what they looked like after being baked. The colors aren’t as different anymore. If someone brought me the pie on the left, even though it’s not as bright of an orange, I would still know it’s pumpkin pie.
Finished product blind taste test #3:
- What’s most funny about this experiment is that going into it, I thought there would be a clear answer based only on taste. What I found is that the biggest difference is the texture.
- The canned pumpkin has a sort of cottage cheese/ricotta texture, whereas the fresh pumpkin has a more sweet potato-like, thicker, more velvety texture.
- I personally think the fresh pumpkin pie texture is better. My husband agrees.
- The canned pumpkin pie taste is seriously driving me crazy now. I’m not sure I can eat canned pumpkin again, because that canned pumpkin flavor is just so strong and unappetizing to me.
So tell me, have you compared canned and fresh pumpkin, side by side? Maybe it’s time to see what you prefer! Have fun and let me know which you like better =)
My Favorite Pumpkin Pie
Ingredients
- 1 small pie pumpkin to yield 2 cups pumpkin puree
- 1 pie crust
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp ground ginger
- 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves
- 2 eggs
- 2 egg yolks
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Cut the pumpkin in half, scrape out the seeds with a melon baller, then bake on a sheet pan for about 1 hour until fork tender. Scoop out all the pumpkin from the skin, and puree in a food processor until smooth. Measure out two cups of pumpkin puree, and set aside for later. (By the way, if you wish to have a thicker, denser pumpkin pie, let the pumpkin puree strain in a colander lined with cheesecloth or a damp, thick paper towel for an hour or so, to remove some of the water from the pumpkin puree).
- Bump the oven heat up to 400, and place your pie crust in a standard 9-inch pie plate. Blind bake the pie crust for 20 minutes, and be sure to either prick the dough all over with a fork, or fill the pie crust with a piece of parchment weighted down with pie weights, to keep the crust from bubbling up as it bakes.
- While the crust parbakes, make the pumpkin pie filling. Place 2 cups of the pumpkin puree, heavy cream, sugar, cinnamon, salt, ground ginger, ground nutmeg, ground cloves, eggs, and egg yolks in a bowl and whisk until smooth.
- Remove the par baked crust from the oven, and turn the heat back down to 350. Place the pumpkin pie filling into the par baked pie crust and place it in the oven (yes, you are starting the pie out at an elevated oven temperature, that’s intentional), and bake the pie for 45-50 minutes (you know it’s done when you jiggle the pan, the center part of the pie jiggles, but doesn’t look liquidy). Let the pumpkin pie cool at room temperature for at least 2 hours before eating (this part is important). This will help set the texture of the pie and let the flavors develop a bit. Enjoy!
Nutrition
Nutrition is estimated using a food database and is only intended to be used as a guideline for informational purposes.
146 Comments on “Fresh vs. Canned Pumpkin: I put them to the test!”
I love to do these kinds of experiments in my kitchen, too 🙂
I may have missed it in the comments. I make several pumpkin pies this time of year. I have always used canned but want to try fresh pumpkin. I love the pie recipe I use though. Can I just substitute the fresh pumpkin for the canned or do I have to make other changes to the recipe? I am unsure if fresh pumpkin can be substituted in other recipes I may make as well. Thanks!
I have always substituted equal amounts.
Thank you! I think I am going to give fresh pumpkin a try this year. Sounds simple to prepare
Love this! I actually always tend to like fresh pumpkin in my recipes better.
My boyfriend and I made a pumpkin pie from scratch last year, and I agree that fresh pumpkin tastes better! I guess that’s true of most things, eh? But I have to say that the canned taste doesn’t bother me too much. Maybe because I didn’t try them side-by-side!
I actually bought an organic pumpkin and made fresh puree for the first time. I was stunned at the difference in taste! I never noticed the weird metallic-ish taste that the canned stuff… even the organic BPA free cans. To make life even easier, just wash the outside of the pumpkin, put it on a sheet pan and roast away. It’s super easy to split the pumpkin and remove the seeds afterward it’s roasted.
Been cooking fresh pumpkin for years. Its funny my kids would have a fit when they were little if someone else would bring the pumpkin pie. They would say its not real. To me fresh pumpkin is smoother and milder than can. I perfer to add a little extra spice to my pumpkin pies. I plan to start cooking my pumpkins this week. yum
We don’t get canned here so I can’t do this test. Fresh usually is better. Who knows what they do to processed food that changes everything.
I am so glad you did this test. I have been thinking of the same thing lately. Like, why don’t people make pumpkin pie with the pumpkins they buy? I always hear people talking about roasting the seeds and never using the pumpkin to make puree. Anyway, I am really going to try this. I do prefer the color of the canned one, just because I’m so used to the puree looking dark and I feel like it makes it look better(more “baked”/ toasty), but w.e if the other method tastes better than that’s what matters most. Holidays will never be the same again. =)
I’ve been baking pumpkin pies from scratch for years now! My sister always had a bunch of leftover pumpkins from halloween (used for decorations and never cut out), so she brought them to me. I roasted, pureed and frozed in ‘can size’ batches for the pies, cookies, pancakes, dressings, etc, etc.
Never knew how much of a difference it made, ’till one Thanksgiving I decided not to bake my own pie, and instead buy one. . . Huge mistake! Even the kids had something to say about the store bought pie. Really! Everybody complained and almost did a full blown sit out protest. Ok, that was a bit too much.
I have always used the fresh pumpkin. However, I have always used the big jack-o-lantern pumpkins for my pies. They taste amazing! I don’t understand what the big deal is about the pie pumpkins. I’d be interested to see someone do a taste test between the pie pumpkin and jack-o-lantern pumpkin.
Okay – this was awesome! Thank you for doing the leg work for the rest of us….now we can all go buy fresh pumpkins!
Great tips. Any use for pumpkin in savory dishes ? Soups ? Stews ?…
I’m going to have to try a side by side of my moms canned rec and yours…I’ll admit I love my moms rec so we will have to see…I’ll let you know what I come up with 🙂 I absolutely love your stuff, ALWAYS awesome!
Rose T.
What a fun experiment. 🙂 In terms of texture, though, have you considered simply running the canned puree through a blender like you did with the fresh? The only time I’ve made my own was when I was making pumpkin risotto and planned to use the emptied, roasted pumpkin as the bowl. In the risotto, I didn’t detect any difference but I think I’d have to do a side by side like you did.
I love your thoroughness with testing each puree – both pies turned out beautiful and I bet very tasty! So interesting!
I have used both canned and fresh. Hands down, the fresh pumpkin is far more tasty than the canned. In fact, I haven’t used canned in years. No comparison as far as I am concerned. The texture and flavor of fresh cannot be compared to canned. When I make pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving you know which pumpkin I will be using.