Pumpkin Pot Pie with Sausage & Kale
In the spirit of fall and everything pumpkin around here, I whipped up this tasty little pot pie. I loved using fresh pie pumpkins and ground pork instead of the traditional chicken, carrots, and peas. This recipe was a home-run and I cannot wait to make it again for family around the holidays. It’s easy to prepare (even the crust is a breeze to whip up!) and bursting with fall flavors. Between the pumpkin, sausage, onions, sage and dash of nutmeg this is what cozy, comfort food is all about. Grab a fork, pour a glass of wine and dig in!
Cheers from an unseasonably cold Tumbleweed Farm
Pork & Pumpkin Pot Pie
Prep Time: 30 minutes Cook Time: 1 hour Serves: 6
For the Crust- 1 ¼ cups all purpose flour (spooned and leveled,) plus more for the work surface
- ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
- ½ cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter
- 3-5 tablespoons ice water
- 1 egg
- 2 tablespoons cream or milk
- 1 pound ground pork
- 1 large onion, finely chopped
- 1 1/2 teaspoons dried sage
- pinch of ground nutmeg
- hefty pinch of salt and pepper
- 1 small bunch of kale, tough stems discarded and coarsely chopped
- 1 medium-small sugar pie pumpkin, cut into 1/2 inch cubes (seeded but no need to peel) for a total of about 1 1/2 cups
- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 3 cups low-sodium chicken or pork stock
Preparation
- Make the crust: Cube the cold butter into ½ inch dice with a sharp knife and place in the freezer to cool back down after handling. Pulse together flour and salt. Add cubed butter and pulse 12-16 times or until the mixture resembles a coarse meal, with a few pea-size pieces of butter remaining. With the machine running, gently pour in the water. Pulse until dough begins to form a ball (it may still be crumbly and that’s okay as long as when you pinch it it holds together.) If it seems too dry add a touch more ice water. Do not over mix.
- Form dough into a disk, wrap tightly in plastic, and refrigerate until firm, about 45 minutes to 1 hour (you can also leave the dough in the fridge overnight).
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a large, deep cast iron pot, cook the pork over medium-high heat, using a wooden spoon to break up the meat a bit. Cook until lightly browned and no longer pink. Remove the pork to a paper towel lined plate to drain. Add the onion, sage, nutmeg salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally for about 5 minutes. Add in the kale and pumpkin and cook until beginning to softened, about 5 minutes.
- Sprinkle in the flour and stir well. Slowly add the stock, 1/2 cup at a time. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until the pumpkin softens and the mixture thickens up a bit, about 8-10 minutes. Return the pork to the pot and give it a good stir. Remove the pot from the heat and keep to the side for a few minutes.
- On a floured work surface, roll out the dough to 1/8-inch thickness. Place dough over the pot (being careful not to burn yourself) and fold the overhang inward while pinching to crimp the edge. Alternatively, you can pour the contents of the pot pie into a pie pan and drape the crust over the pie pan. Cut vents in dough. Brush with egg wash. Place dish on a rimmed baking sheet and bake until crust is golden brown and the filling is bubbling around edge, 45 to 50 minutes. Let cool 15 minutes before serving.
Notes
*The skin on sugar pumpkins (and most all winter squash) is edible so no need to bother peeling
I’m excited to try this! What size skillet/pan did you use?
10 inch pan!
Hi Andrea,
Will you have sugar pumpkins at market this coming Sat?
This looks delicious. Friends coming over – it’s what’s for dinner!!
Laurie
Yep!
This was delicious! I used mild Italian sausage instead of plain ground pork and added a handful of finely diced shittakes (sauteed with the onions). Excellent, definitely a keeper.
So happy to hear!!
Hi! Random intro, but I have been following you for years! I found your instagram when I was in college trying to figure out my life, and I remember thinking, “Oh man, that seems like a nice life. Skipping through fields of veggies all day. Too bad thats not an option for me.” Fast forward to now, I am 25 years and have been farming for the past 4. I now know how incredibly hard being a farmer is, its no skip in a field of kale! Your account has been a HUGE inspiration to keep going when it feels like the world was not built for young (women) farmers to succeed!
Anyway, now to less cheesy things: what are your thoughts on subbing brown lentils for the ground pork, and using all the same seasonings to jazz them up? I am a vegetarian who loves sausage, but also doesn’t quite trust all the prepackaged vegetarian sausages at the market. Looking for a whole food substitute! Thank you for sharing this pot pie magic with the world! We appreciate all that you do!
thanks so much for your lovely comment. So glad you found farming. And yes, I think the lentils could work…though I haven’t made this version with lentils so I can’t be sure how it will turn out. If you are skeptical about the packaged pork at the grocery store (I am too!) I’d recommend talking to local farmers at the markets and sourcing your pork/meat from them. There’s a lot of wonderful ranchers out there doing great things for their communities and helping the environment with their animal grazing. I trust my local ranchers more than I trust a random bag of lentils packaged at the store (though there’s great companies growing lentils they can be harder to find on a small, sustainable scale.) If you do swap out the pork for lentils let me know how it turns out! Happy cooking!
If I cannot find a sugar pumpkin, can I sub any winter squash for this recipe?
Thanks!
absolutely!
I will admit, I am terrible at reading recipes through before starting. I saw the photos on Pinterest and thought in my head a dual-crust pie rather than…pot pie like it literally said in the title. I used my own crust recipe because my dumba** thought, “Wow that doesn’t seem like enough for both crusts.” I made it all the way to where you instructed to lay the crust over the cast iron pan and realized what I had done.
If it’s at all helpful, it 100% worked as a dual crust pie lol. I just scooped out the filling with a slotted spoon and then boiled the remaining juice until it was thickened like gravy and poured it over the filling then made like a regular dual crust pie in a 9 inch deep dish pie pan. Very delicious flavor combination! Would have never thought sausage with pumpkin/squash.
Hi
I cut into the sugar pie pumpkin I bought and the flesh is super pale. Is that ok? If not, would subbing butternut squash be reasonable?
Thanks!
Hi
I cut into the sugar pie pumpkin I bought and the flesh is super pale. Is that ok? If not, would subbing butternut squash be reasonable?
Made this before (with a more enticing pumpkin) and it was SO delicious. My family devoured it.
Thanks!