I know this sounds weird. 100% fully aware. Pumpkin + chorizo IN LASAGNA!? Yeaaah... I'm not sure how we got here, other than sometimes my brain says "oOoh try this!" and I listen. Tbh, this was freaking delicious. You all know I love chorizo, and I admit that chorizo flavor kind of dominates any dish it's in, so this lasagna is basically a chorizo show. You can totally taste the pumpkin in there, but I intentionally left out other spices because I thought it'd be pointless.
ALSO, would you believe that this is the FIRST lasagna (and only) I've ever made!? I'm kind of hooked now — I definitely see the allure. And love the end-product. Maybe I'll go for a more traditional one soon... maybe! Anybody have favorite lasagna flavor combos to share?
Have a wonderful weekend!
Pumpkin Chorizo Lasagna
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 1 hour
- Total Time: 1 hour 20 minutes
- Yield: 8-10 servings 1x
Description
This pumpkin chorizo lasagna comes together quickly with pumpkin puree and ground chorizo. Baked to perfection with three types of cheese, it's a dinner the whole family will love!
Ingredients
- 1 lb ground chorizo
- ⅔ cup chopped yellow onion
- 9-12 lasagna noodles
- 1 tsp olive oil
- salt & pepper
- 4 cups pumpkin puree
- 2 cups whole-milk ricotta
- 2 cups shredded low-moisture mozzarella
- ½ cup shredded parmesan
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375F.
- In a large skillet over medium-high heat, cook the ground chorizo. Break it apart with a spatula as it cooks. After a few minutes, add the onion.*
- While the chorizo is cooking, bring a large pot of water to a boil. When hot, add salt and then lasagna noodles. Cook until al dente, drain, lightly coat with olive oil, and set aside.
- When the chorizo is cooked through, add the pumpkin. Stir together and bring to a simmer. Let cook for 5 minutes. Taste, and add salt and pepper as needed.
- In a 9x12" baking dish, add a thin layer of the sauce. Spread it to cover the entire bottom of the dish.
- Add a single layer of noodles, then ⅓ of the remaining sauce, half of the ricotta, and ⅓ of the mozzarella. Repeat. Add the final layer of noodles, remaining sauce, and all of the remaining cheese (there shouldn't be any ricotta in this layer).**
- Cover with foil, and bake for 30 minutes or until everything is bubbling. Remove the foil, and bake for another 15 minutes (or until the cheese on top is browning). If you're in a hurry, you could just broil it for a few minutes (be careful and watch closely!).
- Serve hot!
Notes
*The chorizo I buy has large chunks of fresh garlic in it, so I didn't add any to this recipe. If your chorizo doesn't have garlic, I'd add a few (pressed/minced) cloves at this point.
**The layering is really up to you — I opted not to have ricotta in my top layer, but you totally could! You could also end with noodles immediately topped with cheese (e.g. no sauce on top).
Keywords: pumpkin chorizo lasagna recipe, chorizo lasagna recipe, pumpkin lasagna recipe
Wendy says
Made this last night and it was amazing! We're vegetarian, so I used soyrizo, and I did have to make one other adjustment. My sauce was much too thick to spread in thirds, and I ran out on the second layer. Luckily I had a jar of Tuscany Pumpkin pasta sauce, so I added that into the second layer and used it exclusively on the top. I think it may also have been fine to add something like veggie stock to thin the sauce out a bit, but I didn't have any on hand. This was my first attempt at lasagna and it was really very easy. Bonus: my bf, who doesn't even like pumpkin, raved about how good it was, and insisted I could make it for him any time. I will definitely make this again.
★★★★★
Mary says
Mmm sounds like a great version, Wendy! Thanks for sharing what you did! xoxo
Lauren says
I was a bit hesitant to make this recipe at first, worried that it would be overwhelmingly pumpkin-y, but this might be my favorite lasagna recipe ever! I roasted and pureed a fresh pie pumpkin for the sauce, which yielded closer to 6 cups of pumpkin and ended up being the perfect amount. Using fresh pumpkin adds about 1 hour to the total prep time, but it's totally worth it! The flavors in this dish complement each other SO WELL and I'm stocking up on pie pumpkins now so that I can make this dish many more times this fall!
As another variation on this recipe, you might try swapping out the lasagna noodles for spaghetti squash. My boyfriend and I made this last night, and topped the spaghetti squash "noodles" with the pumpkin-chorizo sauce, then garnished with ricotta and parmesan. Delicious!
★★★★★
Timothy Woods says
Hello!
Just wanted to let you know that my wife and I tried this recipe the other night. It so happens that my inlaws were there too. They like the recipe so much that they ask for the leftovers to go!
Anyways, thanks a lot for sharing this. Excited to send the next recipe here to my wife.
Have a great day!
★★★★★