Three cheese pumpkin pasta roll-ups are a delicious combination of pumpkin, nutmeg, cinnamon, and sage together in a creamy pasta sauce baked with three cheese.
Do you love pumpkin like I do? I love the flavor of pumpkin in cookies, cakes, and in pasta! Have you ever had pumpkin pasta? It is the best! I eaten pumpkin risotto and pumpkin ravioli while living here in Italy and I so wanted to make a homemade pumpkin pasta dish. That delicious pumpkin flavor is the inspiration to this three cheese pumpkin pasta roll-ups.
Now you may not know it but canned pumpkin is not to be found here in Sicily. Not a single can, so there was a little bit of improvising that came about. I bought pumpkins, almost every day during the fall if I saw a pumpkin in the open market I bought it.
I think we purchased about 10 pumpkins over a couple of weeks. Five or six were used to decorate with our young adults the others were baked and frozen into pumpkin puree. That pumpkin puree was used in this delicious three cheese pumpkin pasta roll-ups.
Have you ever made your own pumpkin puree? It is easy but takes a little time. After washing the pumpkin I baked each one on a cookie sheet at about 400 degrees for about 1 hour until I could pierce the skin with a fork. The I let the pumpkins cool, removed the skin and seeds until I just had the pumpkin meat left.
I packaged the pumpkin into several freezer bags of about 2 cups of pumpkin each. Now it is still just pumpkin at this point. To make it pumpkin puree, you do just that puree your pumpkin in a blender. I scraped down in between each blend and it took about 3 minutes to make it perfectly smooth.
So there you have it, how to make your own pumpkin puree. But this recipe is about three cheese pumpkin pasta roll-ups. Ricotta cheese is used in the middle of each roll-up with that perfectly flavored pumpkin sauce.
The pumpkin sauce is flavored with chicken broth, a little salt and pepper – strictly to taste, I find I like things a little on the salty side – and don’t forget the nutmeg and cinnamon. Yes, you use nutmeg and cinnamon just like you use those flavors in pumpkin treats.
Then everything is topped with finely grated Parmesan cheese and grated Pecorino Romano cheese. The Pecorino Romano cheese is a hard cheese with a strong flavor. A most delicious topping to three cheese pumpkin pasta roll-ups.
Don’t forget to let the pasta cool for a few minutes after removing from the oven. I don’t want any burnt mouths out there.
If you want to try another pumpkin dinner recipe, you’ll love this pumpkin coconut curry too!
Mangiamo!
Three Cheese Pumpkin Pasta Roll-ups
Ingredients
- 12 lasagna noodles
- 8 ounces fresh ricotta cheese
- 15 ounces pumpkin puree
- 2 cups chicken broth
- 8 ounces heavy cream
- 2 tsp nutmeg
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 Tablespoon dried sage
- 1 to 2 tsp salt to taste
- ½ to 1 tsp pepper
- 2 Tablespoons cornstarch
- 2 cloves garlic – minced
- 1 medium green onion – chopped finely
- 1 to 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- ¾ cup grated Pecorine Romano cheese
- ¼ cup finely grated Parmesan cheese
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees
- Lightly oil an 8x8 pan
- Cook lasagna noodles to al dente according to package directions, rinse, and layout on parchment paper to cool
- Warm oil olive over low heat
- Saute green onion and garlic for about 3 minutes
- Add chicken broth and pumpkin puree
- Stir in cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and pepper
- In a cup add the heavy cream, whisk in the cornstarch
- Slowly pour in the cream/cornstarch mixture, whisking the whole time.
- Stir/whisk until thicken like gravy
- Crush sage into pumpkin sauce and mix in
- Spoon about ½ cup of pumpkin sauce into the bottom of the pan
- Over each lasagna noodle spread 1 to 2 Tablespoons pumpkin sauce
- Divide ricotto cheese between all 12 lasagna noodles, spread out as best as possible
- Roll each noodle up and set into the pan
- Spoon 1 cup or more of pumpkin sauce to completely cover the noodles
- Sprinkle with the Parmesan cheese over all
- Spread grated Pecorino Romano cheese over the top of noodles
- Bake for 30 minutes
- Remove and let cool for about 5 minutes before serving
Leave a Reply