How to make roasted pumpkin so much more fabulous with very little effort? A dash of maple syrup for extra caramelisation. Kick of fresh chilli. Plus a sprinkle of feta and shower of walnuts! Serve as a side, a meal, pile on toast or crostini. It’s delicious any which way!
Maple roasted pumpkin with feta and chilli
Something magical happens to pumpkin when you roast it. It intensifies the sweetness and caramelises beautifully.
I’d happily eat it plain. But here, we step it up a notch with a few simple additions that work so well with pumpkin. A dash of maple syrup for extra caramelisation. Plus a hit of fresh chilli, soft nutty crunchy of walnuts and creamy pops of salty feta…..you know this is going to be good!
That’s dinner, right there. Or a mighty delicious side.
Ingredient you need
Here’s what you need to make this.
The roasting stuff
Pumpkin – Any eating pumpkin. I typically use Kent or Jap which are common varieties here in Australia. Do not use pumpkin intended for Halloween carving, it’s not very pleasant to eat.
Alternatives – Butternut pumpkin (called butternut squash in the States) or sweet potato!
Maple syrup – or honey.
Dried chilli flakes – also called red pepper flakes. I use the regular type you get from ordinary grocery stores but you could absolutely use Asian or other types of chilli flakes. Just be mindful of spiciness!
Red onion – substitute regular onion, eschalots (US: shallots) or the white part of green onions (I often have bunches in the fridge with the green parts unceremoniously hacked off for garnish purposes so am always looking for uses of the white part).
Walnuts – Or other nuts of choice. Almonds and pecans come to mind first. Pinenuts, pepitas and other small nuts/seeds would also work but I’d toss them in partway through cooking so they don’t burn into tiny little black (bitter) pellets.
Finishes
Chilli – This is optional because it’s more for visual than spiciness, because we get enough spiciness from the dried chilli flakes. Large chillis, like the cayenne pepper pictured, aren’t very spicy. Good life rule to remember: the larger the chilli, the less spicy it is!
Danish feta – This is the feta type that is a bit more creamy than Greek feta. Greek feta also works, though I do like the way Danish feta sort of smears as it semi-melts on contact with the hot pumpkin.
If you are making to really impress, go premium by using goats cheese!
Parsley – For pretty green finish.
How to make Maple Roasted Pumpkin with Chilli and Feta
This is a recipe that’s more about the finishes. The pumpkin is roasted with onion and walnuts, all tossed with maple syrup. Then once cooked, sprinkle with feta, red chilli and parsley. Then get stuck in!
Cut the pumpkin in 2.5cm / 1″ cubes. To do this I cut into 2.5cm / 1″ slices first. Using a rocking motion as you slice down helps make this easy.
Cut the skin off.
Then cut into cubes.
Pile onto a large paper lined tray with the onion slices and walnuts. Toss with olive oil, maple syrup, salt and chilli flakes then spread it out. The more space between the pumpkin, the better. If the pumpkin is too cluttered, it will stew and go mushy instead of caramelising.
Roast for 30 minutes, tossing once at the 20 minute mark, until the pumpkin is light golden and cooked through. You won’t get intense golden colour on the surface, not like plain roast pumpkin cubes (such as in this recipe), because the maple syrup will burn on the edges of the cubes before the surface goes completely golden.
Also, the onion will get quite dark brown. If you notice at the tossing point that it’s getting a little too brown, just push/pile them all together or bury under pumpkin. This will protect them!
Finishing – Give the pumpkin a gently toss to coat it in all the tasty tray juices. Then transfer to a serving platter – single layer is nice for even sprinkling coverage and neat presentation. Sprinkle with fresh chilli, feta and parsley, then serve!
Or – jumble and pile
I know I said a single layer presentation looks nice and neat. But actually, for maximum flavour-melding-more-rustic presentation (aka Nagi style), do most of the sprinkling on the tray, reserving some for garnish. Then transfer into a serving bowl. Flavour jumbling will occur during transfer and piling.
Finish with reserved feta etc to pretty it up.
Whichever way you go, single layer neatness or jumbled piled up rustic-ness, it still rates the same on the deliciousness scale. Which is, in case you hadn’t guessed, very, very high.
Tell me if you serve this as a side or inhale it as a meal! – Nagi x
PS In case you didn’t know I have a whole category of pumpkin side dishes as part of the vegetable and salad side dishes corner of this website! Mostly relatively low effort, like this one, with a scattering of show-offs for special occasions.
PPS This is not the first time I’ve combined pumpkin. See also here and here.
Watch how to make it
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Maple Roasted Pumpkin with Chili and Feta
Ingredients
- 2 lb / 1 kg pumpkin , peeled, cut into 2.5cm / 1" cubes (whole, unpeeled weight – Note 1)
- 1 red onion , peeled, halved, then cut into 1cm / 0.4" wedges
- 1/2 cup walnuts , roughly chopped (Note 2)
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 3 tbsp maple syrup or honey (sub brown sugar Note 3),
- 3/4 tsp cooking salt / kosher salt
- 1 – 1 1/2 tsp dried chili flakes , adjust to taste (Note 4)
Garnishes (Optional)
- 3/4 cup Danish feta (or Greek feta, or upgrade to goats cheese)
- 1 large red chilli (cayenne pepper), deseeded, finely minced
- 1 tbsp parsley finely chopped
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 200°C/400°F (180°C fan-forced).
- Toss – Place the pumpkin, onion and walnuts on a large, paper lined tray. Drizzle with olive oil and maple syrup, then toss to coat (hands really is best). Sprinkle with chilli and salt, toss again, then spread out on a tray. Don't crowd them else they will stew instead of roast!
- Roast for 30 minutes, or until the pumpkin is lightly browned and cooked through, tossing once at the 20 minute mark.
- Finishes – Remove from the oven. Gently toss again, then transfer to a serving platter in a single layer. Crumble over feta, sprinkle with parsley and chilli. Or do the sprinkling on the tray then pile into a bowl. Serve immediately!
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
Recipe update: This is an old recipe from 2015 that was in desperate need of spruced up photos, a recipe video tutorial and most importantly, recipe improvements! The same recipe, just tweaked to fix. 🙂
More delicious things to make with pumpkin
Life of Dozer
Don’t miss Dozer in today’s recipe video!! Did he get to taste test….??
Utterly divine. Even my husband, who doesn’t really like sweet potato or red onion, polished it off. Yet again fantastic.
I made this for a quick lunch yesterday. yum! yum! yum! So quick, easy and made a great meal but would also be a great side dish. I want to save the recipe to my collection but have forgotten how.
I roast pumpkin often but this recipe was so yummy, will do it this way more often! I used goats cheese chevre as had no fetta, which was also a very yummy sup.
Have followed you on Instagram for a long time and really enjoy your videos. I made the Maple roasted pumpkin recipe to have with our Canadian Thanksgiving dinner (October 9th). We had opted for a roast leg of lamb (Australian lamb!!) and this was a perfect side dish – everybody loved it. I used butternut squash and added coarsely sliced garlic – so delicious. Definitely a repeater!! Thank you Nagi.
Ooooh! Lamb for Thanksgiving 🙂 HAPPY THANKSGIVING MARGIT! Hope you had a wonderful one – N x
So delicious, thanks Nagi. Will definitely be making this again!
I love your recipes dropping in my inbox, thank you. This one we found too sweet, maybe our pumpkin is sweeter. I would delete the Maple Syrup next time, I don’t think it needs it.
Would you serve this as a salad at room temperature
I am so delighted with your new style of videos. It’s really nice to hear your voice and watch you take a bite of your own recipes. I bought a pumpkin a couple of days ago just because it looked so good, not really knowing what I was going to do with it. Now I know, I want to make this recipe. It sounds so delicious. Dozer looks so sad in the video. He really thought that he was going to get some. Give him a belly rub from me, and it would be nice to see more of Dozer in action. All of this has been very enjoyable. Thank you Nagi!:
Leftovers — if there are any! — should I reheat? Eat cold?
This is way too delicious for 3 people. Just enough for me😍
I cannot wait to make this this coming weekend for Canadian Thanksgiving! Thanks Nagi <3
This is the first time I’ve heard your voice! I had to laugh at myself because I had pictured an American accent 😂
Nice to hear you speaking.😁 More personal.
Love this recipe and your new style videos.
I use your recipes at least once a week and have done for quite sometime. One thing that I really liked about your written recipes was your full nutritional values. As a diabetic I need to watch my carbs and there is no info with this recipe. Love Chris
I with you Christine (Chris). I always go to the nutritional values right away when I get ready to make one of Nagi’s recipes. I’m like you and yes it’s so important to know those carbs when your diabetic. I’m not sure why she left them out this time.
Love video nagi. So good to hear your Aussie voice. The real you.
We’ll be making this today. Pumpkins galore here on sunny coast, qld. I’ve been using them for home-made dogfood, which my stumpy tail aussie cattle dog lives for. She recently enjoyed your dog friendly birthday cake with her doggy friends. Thank you for inspirations!
Are you able to make any of this beforehand and freeze it? Any suggestions on the best way to freeze pumpkin?
Loving the new style videos with you and Dozer and…
Making this for dinner tomorrow. Can’t wait. Will have with roasted chicken drumsticks. Thanks!
Looks great! I think I would pile this on top of lentils for a vegetarian main.
I love that you’re revisiting old recipes! I was just wondering about these the other day, wondering if they’d get a refresh and a video 🙂 thank you for sharing! It means so much when everything is so expensive and we can just know unequivocally that if we make one of your creations it’s bound to be good. You have taught me so much. I really, really appreciate it.
This looks amazing Nagi!!! I love anything pumpkin and will totally make this!!! And I love Dozer too, he is awesome!
I wish I hadn’t just checked in on this! It’s 8.45pm Adelaide time and I’m drooling. Imagine what my pillow will be like tomorrow. I reckon this will also be perfect with sweet potato in place of pumpkin!