Pumpkin Salad - Occasionally Eggs (2024)

You may think December is a bit late to share a winter squash recipe, but you’d be wrong! (Technically it’s not yet winter, anyway.) Winter squash/pumpkin is great right through until spring as it stores so well, and I still have about a dozen that I grew in my small garden this season. They’ll be cheap and easily available for at least a couple of months yet.

This is a warm autumn pumpkin salad with roasted pumpkin, root vegetables, seeds, and a creamy tahini dressing over greens. I make this salad through autumn and into winter – it’s both fresh and comforting, a tricky balance. The dressing isincredibleand combines perfectly with the earthy, sweet vegetables and herbs.

Try this as a side over the upcoming holidays, or as a light lunch or dinner any day of the week. It’s just filling enough as is for a light meal, especially served with bread, but you can make some protein-rich additions if you’d like.

This is lightly adapted from my friend Nina Olsson’s book. If you don’t have any of Nina’s books, I highly recommend them! One hit after another, she now has four books released, and they are all excellent.

Ingredients

Ingredient Notes and Substitutions

• Seeds: the original recipe calls for hemp seeds and for the pumpkin seeds to be roasted to add to the salad. I skipped that step this time but have kept it in the recipe card if you’d like to include them. Since hemp is so pricey here (though Nina also lives in the Netherlands) I usually use sunflower seeds.
• Greens: use spinach, hardier greens like rucola (rocket/arugula), chard, or kale for the base of the salad.
• Winter squash: Nina uses a butternut squash but I typically go for hokkaido – it doesn’t need to be peeled, which is great, and I grow it in my garden with good success. Any kind of sweet winter squash can be used, even delicata.

Step by Step

1. Prepare the vegetables: peel the pumpkin if necessary and cut into bite-sized pieces. Place the pumpkin, beets, onions, and radishes onto the other prepared baking sheet. Drizzle olive oil over the vegetables and add the salt, thyme, sage, and tarragon.
2. Cook: roast for about 25 minutes, or until the pumpkin and beets are soft. Watch carefully for the last five minutes as you don’t want the vegetables to be too soft.
3. Assemble: place the roasted vegetables into a large bowl and fold in the greens. Top with the seeds and serve with the tahini dressing.
4. Toss: mix to combine and serve warm.

Recipe Notes

For a higher protein meal, mix in some chickpeas (roasted or plain) or serve with a whole grain like quinoa. It makes a wonderful side dish in the autumn and winter months but can also be a nice light meal.

Make extra vinaigrette and keep it in the refrigerator for up to a week – it’s great with any roasted vegetables, as a salad dressing, or with wraps and sandwiches. I love it with a simple tray bake of carrots and/or pumpkin, potatoes, and chickpeas.

How to Store

Storage: keep the roasted vegetables in a container and add them to the greens immediately before serving, then top with the vinaigrette. With really hardy greens like kale it’s okay to store for a day or two mixed up, but generally keeping them separate makes for a better leftover meal.

Freezing: the roasted vegetables could be frozen, then thawed, reheated, and mixed with the greens, but this seems like about as much work as starting from scratch.

More Winter Squash Recipes

Vegan Butternut Squash Mac and CheeseChickpea Pumpkin Curry
Moroccan Roasted Vegetable Salad
Vegan Pumpkin and Mushroom Shepherd’s Pie

If you make thisPumpkin Salador any othervegetarian autumn recipeson Occasionally Eggs, please take a moment to rate the recipe and leave a comment below. It’s such a help to others who want to try the recipe. For more OE, follow along onInstagram,Facebook, andPinterest, purchase theOccasionally Eggs cookbook, orsubscribefor new posts via email.

This recipe is lightly adapted from Bowls of Goodness: Vibrant Vegetarian Recipes Full of Nourishment. Copyright © 2017 Nina Olsson. Reprinted by permission of the publisher, Edel Germany GmBH and translated into english.