Alfredo Pumpkin Pasta Sauce features a delicious combination of pumpkin puree, cream, Parmesan, Romano, garlic and sage! You'll love this easy pumpkin Alfredo recipe that's ready in 15 minutes or less!
Prep your ingredients. Grate the Parmesan and Romano, if needed. Press the garlic or peel and chop it finely. Rinse the sage leaves and pat them dry. (If you'll be serving the pumpkin Alfredo over pasta, place a pot of salted water on the stove to boil over high heat.)
For the pumpkin pasta sauce, melt the butter in a 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat. Add the sage leaves and stir. Cook for a minute.
Add the pressed garlic to the melted butter, stirring a bit. Let the garlic cook for 30 seconds (or a minute if you chopped the garlic), being careful not to let the garlic burn.
Add the cream to the garlic butter and stir for a minute with a whisk or wooden spoon. Stir in the pumpkin puree, making sure it's completely dissolved into the cream mixture.
Add the salt, pepper and nutmeg to the pumpkin cream sauce and stir to combine.
Turn off the heat under the sauce and move your skillet to a cool burner. Gradually stir in the grated Parmesan and Romano.
(At this point, you can start cooking a pound of pasta by adding it to the pot of boiling water. When the pasta is nearly done, reserve ½ cup (one standard ladle) of the cooking water in a bowl in case you need it to thin out the sauce for leftovers.)
Move your pumpkin sauce pan to a burner over medium heat and stir until the sauce is heated through. (If your pasta isn't ready yet, you can turn off the heat and then reheat the sauce in a few minutes.)
Add cooked and drained pasta (or heated zoodles) to the skillet with the heated pumpkin pasta sauce. Stir gently to combine.
Serve the pumpkin pasta or zoodles with olive oil drizzled on top (don't skip it!) and red pepper flakes, if desired.
If you have leftovers, add the reserved pasta water as needed to thin out the pumpkin pasta. Store the leftovers in the refrigerator for up to four days.
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Notes
It's important to use freshly grated Parmesan and Romano, so the cheese will melt smoothly. (Don't use the cheese sold in a can, or the sauce will be grainy.)
This sauce makes enough for one pound of pasta. You can easily cut the sauce recipe in half for 8 ounces of pasta.
Once the pumpkin sauce is mixed with the pasta, any leftovers will become dry. You can add the reserved pasta water to the leftover pumpkin pasta before refrigerating it. To reheat leftover pumpkin pasta, drizzle on a little olive oil before microwaving the leftovers.
Nutrition info is just for the sauce.
What to do with Leftover Pumpkin Puree
This recipe uses 1 ½ cups (12 ounces) of canned pumpkin puree. In case you're wondering, I did test it using a full 15-ounce can, but the sauce was too thick.You have many options for using the extra pumpkin puree: