
Coronavirus (COVID-19) Preparedness Information Learn More
If you have a young child you're likely to end up with at least one painted pumpkin between school activities, fall festivals, and general let’s-cure-boredom events during the Halloween season. Do yourself a favor and don't throw it out mid-November. Cook it! And cook the seeds, too!
"Maybe it’s because I’m frugal, or because I love roasted vegetables, or because I hear so much about the health benefits of pumpkin every fall -- whatever the reason, I decided to cook our painted pumpkins last year instead of toss them into the woods, and it was phenomenal," says Steph Bilovsky, mother to a third grade pumpkin painter.
Click here for some health benefits of eating pumpkin.
There are several awesome pros to roasting autumn's veggies. It’s a super healthy method of preparation relying on little to no added fats. It warms the house on chilly nights and fills it with a festive aroma, and it’s easy to pull off, requiring very little human touch. This includes pumpkins. Cooking your painted pumpkins is beyond recycling, it’s double-purposing. So next time you’re transitioning from Halloween to Christmas, don’t toss the painted pumpkins … unless you toss them into a salad!
Simple is often best. Here’s one method.
To eat the flesh, you can mash it, put it into a blender with a splash of milk or chicken stock for soup, or eat it by the spoonful salted and/or spiced to your desired taste. This last way is my fave.
![]() |
Pumpkins have a long period of ripeness. These photos are from a pumpkin we used for Halloween 2015, then cooked in January 2016. |