Roasted Pumpkin Chili is my new favorite soup! Mild and savory, it’s a perfect one pot family meal for cool fall nights. I keep things simple and serve roasted pumpkin chili with sliced apples and avocado, but it also pairs well with a low oxalate salad. For lunches, I don’t bother to eat anything else!
I started playing around with the idea for a roasted pumpkin chili about a month ago when pie pumpkins first hit the stores. Creative chef, Karla, over at the Trying Low Oxalates Yahoo and Facebook Groups uses pumpkin puree as a substitute for some of the tomato in spaghetti sauce, so I thought why not chili? But I didn’t want to stop there. I wanted to create a hearty chili with big chunks of pumpkin and some of the traditional pumpkin pie spices. The result is a mild, slightly sweet and savory chili with a middle eastern flair. I highly encourage you to give this Roasted Pumpkin Chili a try. And if you’re reading the ingredients and thinking this sounds really good without the nutmeg and cardamom, I highly recommend you to give it a chance as written with all its spicy goodness. Middle eastern chefs have been using spicy hot flavors like cayenne and chili powder blended with savory spices like cloves, cinnamon and cardamom for centuries, and it’s delicious!
I also want to take this opportunity to let you know that you will see some changes coming up on Low Oxalate Info in the next few months. A recent tax law in Missouri has made me ineligible to continue receiving commissions for products my readers buy through Amazon (in the US) after clicking one of my links or by using my Amazon search engine (UK and Canadian customers can still earn a small commission for Low Oxalate Info with your purchases.) Thank you to every one who has supported this site through your Amazon purchases in the past! I couldn’t keep this site running with out you. I will be taking down the Amazon search engines, but I will continue to link to Amazon products in my recipes when appropriate, so you can see exactly what product I use or which one has been tested for oxalate content. I will also continue to take donations through Paypal. Again, thanks so much to those of you who contributed generously to this site! I may also explore other sources of advertising for Low Oxalate Info, although I promise to keep it tasteful and to a minimum. Thank you for your patience as I explore! I don’t expect this site to earn an income, but I do need it to at least pay for itself.
And now, the recipe I promise will make your taste buds happy!
Roasted Pumpkin Chili
1 smallish to medium-sized pie pumpkin (about six cups raw)
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 pounds ground beef
1 cup chopped onion (about 1 large or two small onions)
6-8 cloves garlic
3 bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cardamom
1 1/2 teaspoons Hatch red chili powder
1/2 teaspoon basil
1/8 – 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)
3 cups big beef tomatoes* (parboiled to remove skins if desired and chopped)
1 1/2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon salt (omit or reduce if you use a canned tomato product)
1 cup water, beef meat broth or beef bone broth
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Peel the pumpkin and clean out the pulp (save the low oxalate seeds to eat raw or roasted!). I find pumpkins are easiest to peel when cut in half or quartered. Cut the pumpkin flesh into one inch pieces and toss with the olive oil on a cookie sheet. Put the pumpkin into the oven to roast, stirring once if necessary, until the flesh is soft and at least some of it is slightly browned (about 25 – 30 minutes).
Meanwhile, brown the beef over medium heat in a large stew pot or dutch oven, stirring occasionally but not so much that you don’t have a few nice big chunks left. When the meat is half brown, half pink add the onions and garlic and keep stirring occasionally. This is also the time to drain off some of the fat if you used a high fat content beef. (I use ground chuck for this recipe and don’t drain my meat). When the onions are translucent add the spices and herbs. Stir well for a minute or two. Add the tomatoes, vinegar and salt. Let simmer until the tomatoes cook down some and start to form a sauce (about 20 – 40 minutes).
When the pumpkin has finished roasting, put 1.5 – 2 cups roasted pumpkin into your blender and puree with 1 cup water (or broth). Pour the puree into the chili and stir. Put the remaining 3.5-5 cups of roasted pumpkin chunks into your soup pot. (If your pumpkin yielded more than 7 cups pumpkin, save some for another recipe or meal. If it yielded less than five cups, pick a bigger pumpkin next time and consider adding some black-eyed peas to your pot for bulk/carbs). Continue to simmer for another 10 – 20 minutes to meld the flavors and reach the desired consistency. You may add more plain broth or water if it looks too dry, but its supposed to be a very hearty, thick soup. Serve plain or with a big dollop of gaucamole or sour cream.
Makes 8 large “full meal” servings or 12 smaller servings.
*About low oxalate big beef tomatoes: This recipe calls for big beef tomatoes because they have the lowest oxalate content and the best taste for this type of recipe (4.1 mg. oxalate per half cup and a good acidity) You may also use early girl, pink girl, German Johnson or Brandywine tomatoes with good results and only a little more oxalate (all of these varieties have less than 6 mg. oxalate per half cup and decent acidity). If you make your own tomato sauce from low oxalate tomatoes you may substitute an appropriate amount. For me, its about 2 cups of my somewhat watery homemade sauce or about 3.5 cups of my homemade tomato juice. If you do not have access to low oxalate tomatoes, keep in mind that many varieties of tomato have as much as 10 or 11 mg. oxalate per half cup. Go ahead and use them but consider reducing the tomato content to 2 cups diced tomatoes or two cups tomato juice.
Low Oxalate Info: All of the ingredients in Roasted Pumpkin Chili are low or lower medium oxalate. One large “full meal” serving with a quarter pound meat and about 1 1/4 cup veggies has only 6.3 mg. oxalate per serving (based on 8 servings per pot made with big beef tomatoes and red hatch chili powder). Add a chopped avocado, a dollop of sour cream and a sliced apple and your entire meal will have about 11. 5 mg. oxalate. Not bad! If you feel the need to reduce the oxalate content more, you might experiment with using mace in place of nutmeg, cinnamon extract powder in place of cardamom, and a smaller amount of tomato (and be sure to let us know how it turns out in the comments section!). Alternately, if you can stand a little more oxalate, you might enjoy more tomato, a bit more hatch chili powder or a more traditional chili powder with cumin.
If you use a chili powder with ground onion and cumin (such as McCormick’s Chili powder) instead of Hatch red chili powder, your oxalate content will be slightly higher (about 0.8 mg. 0xalate per serving higher). If you use a different variety of tomato, that also will raise your oxalate content. If it is an unknown variety it might be a lot higher, but not necessarily too high to eat (an extra 4.5 mg. oxalate per serving based on the average 10 mg. oxalate per half cup of tomatoes). This still puts your entire meal with avocado and sliced apple at 16 mg. oxalate — well within reasonable limits for a low oxalate diet. I’ve made Roasted Pumpkin Chili with early girl tomatoes, too–a prolific early and late producing variety common in the US that is easy to grow and easy to find at many farmers’ markets. Early girl tomatoes are a decent substitution with only an extra 1.5 mg. oxalate per serving.
Picky Eater Pleaser: Leave some ground beef and roasted pumpkin plain for your picky eater, so you don’t have to cook an entire new meal. You may also want to puree the onion with the roasted pumpkin so there aren’t any onion chunks. Consider leaving out the cayenne if any spice is too much and consider leaving out the basil if even the tiniest bit of green stuff is a problem. One of my boys loves this chili as is. The other is willing to try a bite of the spiced meat and a bite of the pumpkin that I’ve fished out of the pot for him. After that he wants to eat plain meat and pumpkin that I’ve reserved for him.
Other Diets: Roasted Pumpkin Chili may also be appropriate for gluten-free, dairy-free, GFCF, GAPS and Paleo diets.
Thanks to Alan Levine and Brian Jackson for your wonderful photos.
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