Can You Eat your Jack-O-Lantern Pumpkin? (2024)

FAQs

Can You Eat your Jack-O-Lantern Pumpkin? ›

Sure — as long as it is in good condition and hasn't' yet been carved. Pumpkins typically used for jack-o'-lanterns usually are larger, with stringier pulp and more watery flesh. However, you can still eat the jack-o-lantern variety with fairly good results.

There are plenty of great pumpkin recipes out there. Using the scraps left over from carving jack-o'-lanterns is a fun way to reduce food waste and increase your consumption of a healthy fall vegetable.

Baking a large batch of pies from a jack-o-lantern pumpkin can bring joy to your neighbors and family.

Technically, you can eat a carving pumpkin. But it won't taste very good. "Carving pumpkins have a woody texture and are stringier than pumpkins intended for eating," says Ilyse Schapiro MS, RD, CDN.

Sure — as long as it is in good condition and hasn't' yet been carved. Pumpkins typically used for jack-o'-lanterns usually are larger, with stringier pulp and more watery flesh. However, you can still eat the jack-o-lantern variety with fairly good results.

Jack O'Lanterns, as they have become known, are a variety of pumpkin bred for carving. Pie pumpkins tend to be heavier with thicker skin, while carving pumpkins are bred for thinner skin and less meat, making it easier to carve. However, any pumpkin will work.

A pie pumpkin will often feel heavier for its size than a carving pumpkin will. You can eat either one of them, but the pie pumpkin is likely to taste a lot better and have better texture. The carving pumpkin will probably be tougher, stringier, less sweet and just generally less flavorful.

It may seem tempting, but I wouldn't recommend cooking with the big pumpkins you normally get at the pumpkin patch. They tend to be very stringy and not flavorful. Instead, I recommend using a pie pumpkin or sugar pumpkin (pictured above). During the fall and winter seasons, most stores will have them available.

For cooking, you'll want to use sugar pumpkins (also called pie or sweet pumpkins), which are small and round. Long Island Cheese pumpkins, which are more oblong and can look like a wheel of cheese, are also good to eat. Field pumpkin types are larger, have watery, stringy flesh, and are best for decorating.

Whatever pumpkins you choose, they are all edible and good for you too. So, eat and enjoy!

Can I eat my pumpkin after Halloween? ›

Cook the pieces of pumpkin you carve out

Add to pasta, risotto, stir-fry, or whatever you're having for dinner! The rest of your pumpkin will also be fine to eat for a few hours if left somewhere cool and dry, but pumpkins which have been carved and left outside with a candle in them are no longer safe to eat.

Pumpkins used for carving are different than food pumpkins. The carving pumpkins are much more difficult to prepare than a small squash grown for the food isle in the farmers market, it does not taste good, and it is watery. It is edible, but eating it is more effort than it is worth.

To use the, I would recommend roasting, steaming, microwaving or boiling then running through a food mill to break up the stringiness. Boiling of course will remove a share of what flavor they do have. At that point, you would have a puree that could be used in cookies, pumpkin bread, cake, etc.

“The typical jack-o'-lantern normally has a three-day life expectancy at best,” said Marc Evan, co-founder of Maniac Pumpkin Carvers in Brooklyn, New York, in a phone interview.

Keep these and other decorations well away from all open flames and heat sources, including light bulbs and heaters. It is safest to use a glow stick or battery-operated candle in a jack-o-lantern. If you use a real candle, use extreme caution.

Now, you actually can cook with any kind of fresh pumpkin. But starting out with a pie pumpkin, or sugar pumpkin is going to help you end up with more pumpkin from less work. Pie pumpkins are smaller, often a little squatty-er in shape, and if you are fortunate, labeled as a baking, pie, or sugar pumpkin.

A pie pumpkin will often feel heavier for its size than a carving pumpkin will. You can eat either one of them, but the pie pumpkin is likely to taste a lot better and have better texture. The carving pumpkin will probably be tougher, stringier, less sweet and just generally less flavorful.

You can absolutely cook pumpkin the way you would cook any other winter squash. The varieties that are bred primarily for decorative use and Jack-o-lanterns may not be quite as flavorful or might be a bit stringier than pumpkins bred specifically for pies and other culinary uses but they are all edible.