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Nothing says fall like pumpkin, but sometimes it’s nice to enjoy their flavor outside of harvest season. Dehydrating pumpkin puree into pumpkin powder allows you to add pumpkin flavor to baked goods without adding a lot of moisture.
Homemade pumpkin flour is nutritious and flavorful and it’s a great addition to baked goods, including paleo and gluten-free recipes.
The following is a guest post from Heather at The Homesteading Hippy. Heather has been teaching people how to preserve their own homegrown goodness for more than 15 years, and she’s recently launched a new site devoted to low-carb recipes called Easy Keto Dishes.
Pumpkin should be known as a superfood. Full of Vitamin A, fiber, antioxidants and plenty of B complex vitamins, it’s a home garden hero.
It’s useful for so many recipes, from sweet to savory. Easy to cook with, and tasty to enjoy, pumpkin is a culinary masterpiece.
Have you ever had a recipe that called for 1 1/2 cups of pumpkin? Sure, we all have. The problem is those cans of pumpkin you get from the store are 2 cups.
What do you do with the extra 1/2 cup? You could add the extra to your recipe, and maybe throw it off a bit. You could store it in the back of the fridge, with all the hopes and dreams that you will remember that it’s there before it goes bad, or you can dehydrate it.
When you are dehydrating canned pumpkin, you are making what’s known as “pumpkin powder.” This makes the pumpkin pantry storage-friendly and will last 5 years in a cool, dry place. The best part is that you can also dehydrate FRESH pumpkin from your garden, saving you space in the freezer.
Dehydrating canned pumpkin (or fresh) is pretty easy, and you can do it without special equipment. I used my Excalibur dehydrator for this, but you can easily do this in your oven as well.
How to Dehydrate Canned Pumpkin
- Spread pumpkin puree on a dehydrator sheet, or parchment paper
- Place in the dehydrator on 125 degrees F for 6-8 hours, or an oven set at lowest possible temp for 5-6 hours
- After 3 hours, flip the pieces over so that all parts will get dried out
- When fully dry, the pumpkin will be stiff and “crack” when you try to bend it
- Place in a coffee grinder and grind to a powder (some chunks are just fine here)
- Store in a tightly covered container for up to 5 years.
How to Dehydrate Fresh Pumpkin
- Cut the pumpkin in half, along the equator.
- Scoop out the seeds, saving them for roasting.
- Place the pumpkin cut side down on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
- Bake for 45-60 minutes at 400 degrees F, until a fork can easily pierce the flesh.
- Allow to cool for 10 minutes.
- Scoop the pumpkin flesh out into a bowl.
- Spread on the dehydrator sheet or new parchment paper-lined baking sheet.
- Place in the dehydrator on 125 degrees F for 6-8 hours, or an oven set at lowest possible temp for 5-6 hours
- After 3 hours, flip the pieces over so that all parts will get dried out
- When fully dry, the pumpkin will be stiff and “crack” when you try to bend it
- Place in a coffee grinder and grind to a powder (some chunks are just fine here)
- Store in a tightly covered container for up to 5 years.
How to Rehydrate Pumpkin Powder
Rehydrating pumpkin powder is simple and just requires a little water and time. Add 1 cup of water to every 1/4 cup of dehydrated pumpkin powder and allow it to sit for 20-30 minutes. Give it a quick stir and then use it as you would regular pumpkin puree.
How to Use Pumpkin Powder (Pumpkin Flour)
While you can simply rehydrate pumpkin powder and turn it back into pumpkin puree for your favorite recipes, dehydrated pumpkin has some extra benefits. Generally, pumpkin cookies made with pumpkin puree turn out cakey because of all the extra moisture. Try adding a bit of dehydrated pumpkin flour to a standard chocolate chip cookie recipe for pumpkin flavor and a crisp cookie.
Pumpkin flour is actually a product being marketed to home cooks as a gluten-free and paleo flour substitute. Try adding pumpkin powder to just about anything as a spice.
- Use as a spice in pies
- Add to pumpkin spice smoothies or coffee
- Sprinkle over pasta
- Mix in with your favorite granola recipe
Have you ever dehydrated canned pumpkin or fresh pumpkin? What would you use it for?
Can I substitute butternut squash for the pumpkin?
I don’t see why not.
If you slightly caramelize the baked pumpkin slices and leave them in the oven after you bake it (like 20-30 min) and turned it off, i found pumpkin gets really dry and mealy. Nice taste and so easy to dehydrate and powder.
Thank you for sharing that tip.
How thin/thick are you spreading it onto the dehydrator sheets? 1/4″, or thinner? I’m trying to estimate how much squash to cook up at once to load my Excalibur dehydrator. Thanks for this recipe, and the tip that the food processor won’t get it fine enough, I appreciate it!
You want it quite thin on the sheets, like you’re making fruit leather. It should be 1/8 inch thick at most.
This may be a silly question but what kind of pumpkins are you using? Pie pumpkins or the kind sold for “carving: sold everywhere this time of year? Thank you.
I would use pie pumpkins. The carving pumpkins typically don’t have a lot of flavor and the texture is usually more stringy.
Can the dehydrated pumpkin puree be successfully ground in a VitaMix grain jar?
I honestly don’t know, as I don’t have one of those.
When reconstituting, does the 1/4pumpkin powder and 1c water make 1cup of pumpkin purée?
I I wasn’t aware that pumpkin needed to be cooked before dehydrating. I peeled and sliced mine then dried it. It was very brittle when I went to grind it, so I used my grain mill to powder it. Can I still use it as I would pumpkin that’s been cooked before dryjng?
I have found that cooking the pumpkin before dehydrating really enhances the flavor of the pumpkin.
I dehydrated pumpkin slices with the plan to make sweet and savoury chips. But I was didn’t get to seasoning them. Now that they’re dry I’m wondering the best way to flavour them. In the meantime I have all these dehydrated chips. So today I took a couple of jars and put them through my vitamix and it’s a fine ground flour.
Could this be ground in food processor rather than coffee grinder?
A food processor won’t grind it fine enough to become a powder, unfortunately.
I dehydrated pumpkin puree for the first time. I used lowest setting on my excalibur, rotated my trays and tried flipping trays over. Both times it looks really dark, almost like its burnt, is this how its supposed to look? Do you have pictures of yours when its done? Thank you for any help.
It sounds like it may be oxidized during drying? I’m not sure what could have caused that, mine comes out bright orange.
Need to practice it …
I’ve been making my own pumpkin powder for years but I don’t use it to replace some of the flour, I use it to replace the butter or oil in recipes just like you would use applesauce. I rehydrate it first though. It changes the texture of cookies a little (which I don’t mind) but in other things it’s not noticeable. I’ll have to try adding a little dry powder to the cookies too for some of the flour. Rehydrated it still works great for pumpkin pie too. I also add it to chili and spaghetti sauce. It’s great way to add extra nutrients and no one even notices it.