The Best Pumpkins for Cooking

For great color, flavor, and nutrition, choose from this list of the best pumpkins for cooking.

Rambunctious, rambling pumpkin and squash vines are almost as uncontrollable as our desire to consume their fruits once fall colors start to show. This enthusiasm spills over into the kitchen, where pumpkins and squash (including acorns, butternuts, bananas, buttercups, turbans and Hubbards) can hardly be contained. Pumpkins are delicious served plain — grilled, steamed, baked, boiled or roasted whole in hot embers (an old-school way to prepare the humble pumpkin that works just as well today).

However you cook them, pumpkins and winter squash offer a boatload of color, flavor, and nutrition. The specific nutrient profile depends on the variety (of which there are many), but these members of the cucurbit family generally are a good source of dietary fiber, vitamin A, vitamin C, riboflavin, potassium, copper, manganese, vitamin E, thiamin, niacin, vitamin B6, folate, iron, calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus. Meanwhile, they’re low in fat and calories.

Pumpkin Seeds

The seeds and seed oils from pumpkins and squash are good for you, too. The seeds are loaded with protein and fiber, and make a crunchy, delicious snack or salad topping. (Learn how to roast your own seeds in How to Roast Squash and Pumpkin Seeds.) The oil from certain pumpkin seeds, most notably from the ‘Styrian Hulless’ pumpkin of Austria, is incredibly dark, rich and flavorful and is full of heart-healthy fats.