The pumpkin ring pasta with speck and gorgonzola is a truly special oven-baked first course. Baked ring pasta is a typical Sicilian dish and I wanted to prepare it in an autumn/winter version, using pumpkin, which, as you know, I love. The pumpkin ring pasta is creamy, stringy, and super tasty, a rice timbale without béchamel for everyday lunch, an ideal casserole for Sunday lunch or festive occasions, even for Christmas holidays, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve, they are truly special!
- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Cheap
- Preparation time: 15 Minutes
- Portions: 4-6 people
- Cooking methods: Oven, Stove
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Autumn, Winter
Ingredients
- 26.5 oz pumpkin
- 10.5 oz pasta
- 10.5 oz scamorza cheese
- 7 oz gorgonzola
- 5.5 oz speck
- 3.5 oz parmesan
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- to taste salt
- to taste black pepper
- to taste oil and breadcrumbs
Steps
The baked pumpkin ring pasta with speck and gorgonzola is very simple to prepare. First, clean the pumpkin, remove the skin and seeds, and cut it into pieces.
Boil the pumpkin in salted water for about ten minutes; it should soften. Remove the pumpkin, and in the same cooking water, cook the ring pasta, keeping it very al dente (cook it 3-4 minutes less than the time indicated on the package), adjust the salt.
Meanwhile, mash the pumpkin with a fork and set aside a couple of tablespoons, add the grated parmesan, a bit of chopped speck, black pepper, the extra virgin olive oil, gorgonzola, and give it a good mix.
Add the ring pasta, some diced scamorza cheese, and mix everything together; if necessary, add a bit of the pasta cooking water to make it creamier.
Transfer some of the pumpkin ring pasta into a greased baking dish sprinkled with a bit of breadcrumbs, add the remaining pumpkin, speck, and scamorza, and cover with more pasta, leveling it well.
Finish the pumpkin ring pasta with a sprinkle of breadcrumbs and grated parmesan and bake it in a preheated oven at 392 degrees Fahrenheit for about 20 minutes until it is golden brown on top.
Notes:
The pumpkin ring pasta can be stored at room temperature for a few hours or in the fridge for 2-3 days. If you don’t like gorgonzola, you can substitute it with the creamy cheese of your choice such as stracchino, taleggio, robiola, brie, or classic spreadable cheese. Instead of speck, you can use bacon, browned before adding it to the rest of the ingredients.
More pumpkin recipes HERE
