Name: Instant Pot Pumpkin
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 9 min
Total time: 14 min
Yield: 6
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 1 medium pumpkin (cut in half, seeds removed); 1.5 cup water

If Instant Pot pumpkin puree is something you want to make this year, we have a recipe for you! Of course you could use your oven and the “old fashioned” way but this pressure cooker pumpkin method is SO much easier. One more addition to our long list of easy Instant Pot recipes for you to use. 😉

It makes this Fall vegetable so tender and perfect for canning or making delicious homemade pumpkin butter too! You can make this in a Ninja Foodi with the lid that is attached this same way too.

I mean there are SO many options once this is done. I’d have to say our pumpkin zucchini muffins top the list though. Whether you want to just slice it to enjoy as a tender squash side dish with dinner or puree it when done that is up to you.

I got this squash from a relative out of her garden. In researching what it was it was found it to be a long pie pumpkin. Cooked it tastes just like the traditional circular orange versions.

I knew you could pop a whole pumpkin in your pressure cooker but it was a bit long so I cut up into large pieces. If it is too big to fit in their cut in half, just slice those halves into fourths and it will be fine that way. It worked great!

Ingredient Notes

A pumpkin, and since we were making it a bit sweet we added some goodies like sugar, nutmeg and more. We will share what we made with you below. It was so yummy!! For this scoop the insides out. Throw this pulp into your blender with just a dash of liquid. Once it’s as smooth as you’d like you can make all sorts of things.

To Make Pumpkin Puree You will Also Need

Trivet – I like one with handles or vegetable steamer basket
A knife to cut the pumpkin into pieces so it will fit, sugar pumpkins are a great size
A large spoon and colander are great for removing the seeds and cleaning.
Cup of water
Blender or food processor would work
Mason jars for storing in fridge, or pint size freezer bags if making it in bulk and freezing it.

How Long to Cook Pumpkin in Instant Pot

You will need 9-15 minutes depending on if you cut it in half or left it whole. I recommend slicing it like we did here so you can first remove the seeds and roast them later. You can steam the whole thing though if you would rather but it would need to be small enough to fit on your trivet with a bit of space around it for the hot steam to circulate properly.

Can you cook big pumpkins this way?

Not with this method or air fryer pumpkin. I mean it has to fit inside. Yes you can cut it in half or even into fourths if you wanted but there’s still a limited capacity. It might be easier to use a big pot on your stovetop with a trivet in the bottom for a rather large one. I would choose a small / medium one for this method.

Once you scoop out the seeds put them in a strainer and get the gunk off. Then you can make our killer air fryer pumpkin seeds for a healthy snack.

You could use these same steps with acorn, butternut squash or Spaghetti Squash too. In all cases I will suggest that my biggest tip is that you slice into pieces and remove the seeds first. This will get you the best overall tender texture with the flesh, so soft it is almost like butter with a spoon.

How to Make Pumpkin Puree out of a Steamed Pumpkin

Once the flesh inside is so tender that you can scrape it out with a spoon that is exactly what you are going to do. Scoop it out until you get close to the rind and it gets stiffer and stop there. Put it into a blender, cap with the lid and pulse to smooth. That is it!!! Our most popular thing to make with this is our Pumpkin Pie in Ramekins (crustless) recipe, so so good.

There is enough liquid in the vegetable so you don’t need liquid, you want it rather thick. That is all you need to do!! Puree doesn’t have any spices in it, that would be labeled pumpkin pie filling. You would just fold in some things like cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger for that.