How to Dehydrate Pumpkin and Pumpkin Pie Smoothie Recipe

If ever you wanted to make your own pumpkin puree, it’s super easy, and you can dehydrate it for long-term storage.

Mom with a PREP | Love pumpkin and want to use it all year long? Learn how to roast, puree, dehydrate, rehydrate pumpkin + a make your own pumpkin pie smoothie recipe!

How to Make Roasted Pumpkin Puree

  • Cut pumpkin in halves or fourths (you can use any pumpkin or gourd, but sugar pumpkins have the sweetest taste, though I use small jack-o-lantern pumpkins as well)
  • Clean out pulp and seeds (save the seeds for roasting! Just soak them in a salt water bath, dry then throw in a 400F oven for 10 min)
  • Place pumpkin pieces  cookie sheet (line with parchment paper if you want to help with the mess)
  • Roast at 400F for about 30-45 min (this will depend on how large your pieces are. Begin checking at the 30 min mark. If you can stick a knife in easily, it’s done)
  • Remove from oven and place on cooking rack for about an hour to cool (the flesh can retain a lot of heat!)
  • Remove the skin that’s easy to take off now
  • Throw flesh into your mixer. I use a stand mixer that can take large quantities, but you can also use your blender or a hand-mixer
  • Blend until absolutely smooth.
 
At this point, you can freeze the puree (I freeze in 1 C quantities in zip top bags and then throw those bags together into a larger zip top freezer bag) or you can dehydrate it!
 

Dehydrate Pumpkin you say?

Sure! It’s super easy and takes up so much less space than buying cans of pumpkin puree or trying to keep all of your long-term storage in the freezer.

Spread your pumpkin puree on sheets in your dehydrator (this is where you’ll want to use parchment paper, the fruit leather sheets that come with your dehydrator or as a quick tip – buy some plastic cutting board sheets from the dollar store and cut them to fit your machine! Once you’ You will be able to then dehydrate it when the time comes to use for making everything you wanted pumpkin puree for in the first place!

How to Dehydrate Pumpkin at MomwithaPREP.com

Tip: In her book, The Ultimate Dehydrator Cookbook, Tammy Ganglott suggests using a pizza cutter to carve a checkerboard pattern into your puree to make it easier to break into pieces later. 

Set your dehydrator to your fruit / veg setting – I usually do it at around 125Ffor approximately 10-12 hours. Make sure to check 3/4 of the way through the cycle to turn over any sheets that are drying well on top, but still sticky and gummy on the bottom.

How to Dehydrate Pumpkin at MomwithaPREP.com

You’ll want to make sure the puree has fully dehydrated and is crisp and brittle. You can remove those parts and continue dehydrating any part that might still be gummy awhile longer. Be sure to flip any to get a good exposure on both sides fit they are still gummy.

Store your sheets in an airtight container if you like storing in sheets, but I like taking it one step further and storing it as pumpkin powder.

How to make Pumpkin Powder

How to Make Pumpkin Powder

I’m sharing these photos from my post on how to dehydrate canned pumpkin but it is the exact same process:

If you plan on making pumpkin powder from your dehydrated pumpkin puree, you don’t need to worry about how much each sheet is. In the end, you’ll be measuring on a ratio to rehydrate the powder, so just do it in batches.

Swimming in canned pumpkin or freezer bags full of pumpkin puree? Here's how to dehydrate your canned pumpkin puree and make pumpkin powder!

Grind your dehydrated pumpkin until you’re down to a powder. You’ll want to sift it through a fine wire mesh strainer

Swimming in canned pumpkin or freezer bags full of pumpkin puree? Here's how to dehydrate your canned pumpkin puree and make pumpkin powder!

or, like we did, used my grandmother’s old flour sifter to sift through and break down some of the larger bits.

Swimming in canned pumpkin or freezer bags full of pumpkin puree? Here's how to dehydrate your canned pumpkin puree and make pumpkin powder!

You’ll want to repeat this with the leftover bits as many times as you need to. It took me 3 times of running through the blender to get to the point where I was happy with the amount of powder gotten, and threw the last little bit into my coffee grinder for the last bit because it works better that way than in a large blender.

Now, don’t get discouraged by this. This amount, which is about a quarter of a quart canning jar is 4 cans of pumpkin or 8 cups. I wanted you to see the approximate amount of what the cans work out to be. Because I didn’t start from a real pumpkin, I can’t give you an approximation of what size pumpkin produces how much powder because it really does matter the size of the pumpkin you started with. But 1 can of pumpkin puree is about 2 cups of pumpkin puree — and that will give you the idea of the ratio of puree to powder.

Swimming in canned pumpkin or freezer bags full of pumpkin puree? Here's how to dehydrate your canned pumpkin puree and make pumpkin powder!

How to Use Pumpkin Puree

The ratio of rehydrating powdered pumpkin is this:

To rehydrate, use a 4:1 ratio of water : pumpkin powder and allow it to sit for 20-30 minute to fully rehydrate.

2 C water to 1/2 C pumpkin powder = 2 C pumpkin puree

Use puree as normal in pies, muffins, etc!

Tip: Alternatively, you can just cut up your pumpkin into slices, slivers or chunks and dehdyrate them that way, but I prefer just roasting and pureeing because it takes less work for me (and you don’t have to peel and cut up those hard pumpkins – it’s so much easier after roasting).

Looking for a dehydrator that’s affordable? Check out my Dehydrator on a Budget Review here!

A word of caution. Please don’t can your pumpkin puree. It is too dense to properly can without risking food poisoning. You may can chunks of pumpkin, but save the puree for freezing or dehydrating.

101 Dehydrating Recipes & Tips from Mom with a PREP.com

Now – do you want to make an incredible smoothie with that new pumpkin puree you’ve just made?

PUMPKIN PIE SMOOTHIE

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup pumpkin puree
  • 1/2 frozen ripe banana
  • 3/4 C yogurt or greek-style yogurt  (I strain my store-bought yogurt to make it more like a greek-style)
  • 1 tbsp pure maple syrup or honey
  • 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
  • 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
  • handful of spinach (I prefer spinach over kale in this particular recipe because the kale flavor can overpower quickly)
  • 1 cup  ice

Place ingredients into your blender (I tend to put liquid into the bottom first to give the blender something to work with then add the big chunks) and blend away! you could add a dollop of sweetened yogurt to the top to make it look like a pumpkin pie in a glass..and sprinkle some graham cracker crumbs around for a bit of fun. It’s SO amazingly yummy!

Want to see the process in action?

The BEST way to show you is through this video by Bexar Prepper:
 

She shows you how to then rehydrate the pumpkin puree to use in recipes!

Now – do you want to make an incredible smoothie with that new pumpkin puree you’ve just made?

PUMPKIN PIE SMOOTHIE

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup pumpkin puree
  • 1/2 frozen ripe banana
  • 3/4 C yogurt or greek-style yogurt  (I strain my store-bought yogurt to make it more like a greek-style)
  • 1 tbsp pure maple syrup or honey
  • 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
  • 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
  • handful of spinach (I prefer spinach over kale in this particular recipe because the kale flavor can overpower quickly)
  • 1 cup  ice

Place ingredients into your blender (I tend to put liquid into the bottom first to give the blender something to work with then add the big chunks) and blend away! you could add a dollop of sweetened yogurt to the top to make it look like a pumpkin pie in a glass..and sprinkle some graham cracker crumbs around for a bit of fun. It’s SO amazingly yummy!

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Katy Willis is a writer, lifelong homesteader, and master herbalist, master gardener, and canine nutritionist. Katy is a preparedness expert and modern homesteader practicing everyday preparedness, sustainability, and a holistic lifestyle.

She knows how important it is to be prepared for whatever life throws at you, because you just never know what's coming. And preparedness helps you give your family the best chance to thrive in any situation.

Katy is passionate about living naturally, growing food, keeping livestock, foraging, and making and using herbal remedies. Katy is an experienced herbalist and a member of the CMA (Complementary Medical Association).

Her preparedness skills go beyond just being "ready", she's ready to survive the initial disaster, and thrive afterward, too. She grows 100% organic food on roughly 15 acres and raises goats, chickens, and ducks. She also lovingly tends her orchard, where she grows many different fruit trees. And, because she likes to know exactly what she's feeding her family, she's a seasoned from-scratch cook and gluten-free baker.

Katy teaches foraging and environmental education classes, too, including self-sufficient living, modern homesteading, seed saving, and organic vegetable gardening.

Katy helps others learn forgotten skills, including basic survival skills and self-reliance.

She's been published on sites such as MSN, Angi, Home Advisor, Family Handyman, Wealth of Geeks, Readers Digest, and more.

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