Description
Learn how to make delicious and hearty festive vegan stuffed pumpkin with lentils, quinoa, and mushrooms. Moreover, my creamy and herby cashew-miso dressing will make this dish extra luscious.
Soaking time: 2 hours
Ingredients
Scale
- 2 medium-sized Hokkaido pumpkins (about 1kg, 2.2 pounds each)
- 110g (3.9oz) dry quinoa, soak
- 100g (3.5oz) dry green lentils, soak
- 1 medium onion (100g, 3.5oz)
- 13 button mushrooms (233g, 8.2oz)
- ½ tsp. dried basil
- ¼ tsp. smoked paprika
- ½ tsp. ginger powder
- 2 tbsps. + 1 tsp. tamari
- 23g (0.8oz) fresh parsley
- 2 tbsps. nutritional yeast
- 1 avocado + ½ tbsp. lemon juice
For cashew-miso dressing blend:
(makes a bit over 400 ml)
- 80g (2.8oz, half cup + 2 tbsps.) raw cashews, soak
- 1 slightly heaping tbsp. shiro miso
- 1 slightly heaping tbsp. dark miso
- 1 fresh garlic clove
- 1 tbsp. + 1 tsp. lemon juice
- ½ tsp. whole mustard seeds or ¼ tsp. ground
- ½ cup + 3 tbsps. water
- 100g (3.5oz) plant yogurt
Instructions
- First, in different bowls, soak the quinoa and lentils (for the filling), and cashews (for the dressing) for at least 2 hours. Then, drain and rinse.
- Next, let’s bake the pumpkin. Cut one Hokkaido pumpkin in half and remove the seeds. Then, place the pumpkin halves, face down, on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake at 200°C for 30 minutes until the pumpkin in soft. Remove from the oven, flip them around and let cool.
- While the pumpkin is baking, cook the quinoa and lentils. For the quinoa, add the soaked grains along with a bay leaf and 130g of water, into a small pot. Bring to boil, turn the heat to minimum and simmer for 13 minutes. Let steep with the lid on for 10 more minutes. Then, lift the lid and stir gently with a fork. To cook the lentils, add the soaked, drained, and rinsed lentils along with a bay leaf and 75g of water into a pot and simmer for 5-6 minutes until the lentils are soft but not mushy.
- Now, finely slice the mushrooms and throw them into a pot. Simply fry them dry mixing occasionally. It will take about 5 minutes, but water starts to separate. Once they’re sizzling in their own juice, add chopped onion. Stir and cover. Sauté for 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and mix in dried basil, paprika, tamari, chopped parsley, and nutritional yeast.
- When the quinoa and lentils have cooled down a bit, remove the bay leaves and transfer them into a large bowl along with the onion-mushroom-herb mixture. Combine gently and thoroughly.
- In a small bowl, mix avocado cubes with ½ tablespoon of lemon juice to prevent browning and gently stir them into the pumpkin filling.
- Now, divide the filling between 4 pumpkin halves and serve with miso-cashew dressing.
Notes
Should miso not be available to you, make my Chickpea-Tahini Dressing instead.
Feel free to use brown rice, wild rice, or sorghum instead of quinoa. Also, you may replace green lentils with brown or black lentils.
If you’re rigorously following the glycemic load points per meal, don’t eat more than ¾ of the serving provided on the recipe card i.e., ¾ of one stuffed pumpkin.
- Prep Time: 40 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 stuffed pumpkin half
- Calories: 544 kcal
- Sodium: 865mg
- Fat: 18.4g
- Saturated Fat: 2.9g
- Carbohydrates: 64.5g
- Fiber: 13.7g
- Protein: 26.3g
