The meat and pumpkin ragu is a delicious white sauce perfect for an autumn pasta: thus the classic ragu with tomato sauce turns yellow! Enveloping, creamy, fragrant and tasty, the meat and pumpkin ragu will make you fall in love. How to use it? To dress egg tagliatelle, rigatoni, mezze maniche, as a base for a baked pasta or a lasagna with the addition of provolone, béchamel, and parmesan. Try it because it’s delicious!
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- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Economical
- Preparation time: 25 Minutes
- Portions: 4People
- Cooking methods: Stovetop, Oven, Electric Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Autumn, Winter
Ingredients
I never add oil when preparing ragu. If needed, I add a little raw oil at the end of cooking. You can add it if you prefer.
- 1 delica pumpkin (mine weighed 2.6 lbs)
- 1.1 lbs mixed ground meat
- 1.1 oz soffritto mix (celery, carrot, and onion)
- 1 red onion
- 1 tsp homemade vegetable bouillon cube (optional)
- to taste nutmeg
- to taste salt
- 1/4 cup white wine
Tools
- 1 Cutting Board
- 1 Kitchen Knife
- 1 High-sided Casserole
Steps
Cook the pumpkin: you will find the instructions in the article “cooking a whole pumpkin in the oven“. While the pumpkin is cooking, prepare the meat ragu: in a high-sided casserole, collect the soffritto mix, the thinly sliced red onion, and the homemade vegetable bouillon cube. Then add the meat and let it brown, stirring to break up all the meat chunks. When the meat is well browned, deglaze with the white wine, let it evaporate, adjust the salt but be careful if you have added the bouillon cube, and cook by adding hot water little by little. When the pumpkin is cooked, remove it from the oven, let it cool slightly, then cut it into slices, remove the seeds, filaments, and skin, and obtain half of the pulp. Transfer it into the immersion blender cup. Add a little water and blend the pumpkin until smooth and creamy. Pour the pumpkin cream into the casserole with the ragu and mix to combine it with the meat. Scent with a pinch of nutmeg and cook a few more minutes. My ragu took just over an hour to cook in total.
Notes
The leftover pumpkin can be used in other recipes: you can find them above under the introduction.
