Stuffed pumpkin with meat and vegetables 

Stuffed pumpkin with meat and vegetables is the perfect dish for impressing guests or treating your family to something unique, flavorful, and beautifully presented. A baked stuffed pumpkin can be filled with almost anything you have on hand — meat, vegetables, or even grains. The classic version is traditionally prepared with pork, potatoes, and semi-hard cheese.

To make the dish not only hearty but also healthy, it’s best to use corn oil during cooking. It adds juiciness to the stuffing without affecting its natural taste and aroma. Corn oil is rich in vitamins E, F, B1, PP, as well as potassium, copper, phosphorus, and essential fatty acids (oleic, stearic, palmitic). Regular consumption of this oil supports healthy skin and hair, helps protect the body from free radicals, and prevents an increase in harmful cholesterol.

The CraftOil brand offers fresh, aromatic, delicious, 100% natural corn oil, produced on certified presses from clean, organic raw materials that are free from preservatives. We press our oils — corn and many others — only after a customer places an order. Immediately after pressing, we bottle the oil in dark glass containers, hermetically seal them, and ship them quickly across Ukraine and Europe.

On our website, you can also order high-quality grains, seeds, and nuts that are perfect both for eating and for making raw, «living» oils at home. Explore our product range — you will surely find something you’ll want to try.

Ingredients (serves 4)

To prepare a delicious stuffed pumpkin with meat and vegetables, you will need:

• 1 medium pumpkin (1–1.2 kg);
• 1 onion;
• 1 sweet bell pepper;
• 2 medium potatoes;
• 50 g semi-hard cheese;
• 200 g lean pork;
• 1 carrot;
• 50 g corn oil;
• 1 tsp salt;
• A pinch of ground pepper;

Step-by-step preparation

Wash the pumpkin and pat it dry with a kitchen towel. Slice off the top part (this will serve as a lid). Remove the seeds and pulp from the inside. The pumpkin walls should be no thicker than 1.5 cm, otherwise the stuffing may not cook properly. Rinse the hollowed pumpkin inside.

Peel the potatoes, onion, and carrot, rinse them under running water, and cut into medium-sized cubes. Wash the bell pepper, cut it in half, remove the seeds and stem, then slice the flesh into thin strips.

Cut the cheese into cubes roughly the same size as the vegetables. Rinse the pork thoroughly, trim off any fat or connective tissue, and slice the meat into thin pieces.

Season the inside of the pumpkin with salt and pepper, brush it with corn oil, and let it marinate for 20 minutes.
In the meantime, sauté the pork in a pan for about 15 minutes, then add the onion, carrot, and bell pepper. Cook until the vegetables become slightly golden and soft.

Place the sautéed pork and vegetables inside the pumpkin. Add the raw potato cubes and cheese. Pour in a couple of tablespoons of water, cover the pumpkin with its «lid», and bake in the oven for 1 hour at 190°C.

Serve hot. If desired, top the stuffing with finely chopped fresh herbs.

Notes:

A 100-gram serving of this healthy stuffed pumpkin contains only 89 calories, making it suitable even for those following a low-calorie diet or working on weight loss.

To give the dish a more intense, aromatic flavor, you can add a pinch of black cumin seeds or a few drops of black cumin oil. Both of these items — along with many other artisanal, cold-pressed oils — are available in the CraftOil online store.