Pumpkin Pasta Bake with Almond Ricotta – A cheesy, creamy, delightful fall dinner, and it’s completely vegan! Gluten free option.
This Pumpkin Pasta Bake is fall comfort food to the max. It features rotini pasta, a creamy pumpkin sauce, almond ricotta and spinach. I also covered it in vegan mozzarella for extra cheesy goodness.
Fancy enough to serve at your holiday table, everyone will love this pasta bake. For another comforting fall recipe, try my Butternut Squash Lasagna.
Ingredients needed
- Rotini pasta – Or a similar shape, such as penne or even shells would work. Use gluten free if needed.
- Vegan Ricotta – Almond based vegan ricotta is so good, but if you can find it you can substitute Kite Hill’s vegan ricotta.
- Olive oil
- A small onion
- Garlic
- Canned pumpkin puree – I haven’t tried it with fresh, but it would probably work as long as you cook and puree it first. Don’t accidentally use pumpkin pie mix! Not the same thing at all.
- Full fat coconut milk – From the can, not the carton. Use full fat for the creamiest sauce, but if you want to lighten it up you can use light coconut milk or even cashew milk.
- Ground nutmeg
- Salt + pepper
- Baby spinach
- Vegan Mozzarella – optional for topping, you can use either my Shreddable Mozzarella or Stretchy Mozzarella. Or a store bought cheese, I actually used Violife here.
How to make pumpkin pasta bake
First, cook your pasta, then drain it. Prepare the ricotta. Make the quick pumpkin sauce on the stovetop. (For the full ingredient list and instructions, scroll down to the recipe card.)
- In a large casserole dish, add the cooked noodles and the pumpkin sauce. Stir to mix.
- Stir in the baby spinach.
- Add spoonfuls of the ricotta and stir a little, but not too much, leaving chunks of cheese throughout.
- Cover with vegan mozzarella (optional) and bake for 15-20 minutes.
Leftovers
This pumpkin pasta makes the best leftovers, and will keep in the refrigerator for 4 days or so. It can be frozen, though the noodles will soften and be a bit mushy.
Looking for more pasta bakes?
- The Best Vegan Lasagna
- Vegan White Lasagna
- Butternut Squash Lasagna
- Vegan Stuffed Jumbo Shells
- Vegan Baked Ziti
Pumpkin Pasta Bake with Almond Ricotta
Pumpkin Pasta Bake with Almond Ricotta - A cheesy, creamy, delightful fall dinner, and it's completely vegan! Gluten free option.
Ingredients
- 12 ounces rotini pasta *gluten free if needed
- 1 Recipe Vegan Ricotta
Pumpkin sauce
- 1-2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 small onion, diced
- 2-3 cloves garlic, minced
- 15 ounce can pumpkin puree
- 13.5 ounce can full fat coconut milk
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon salt
- few shakes black pepper
The rest
- 2 cups baby spinach, sliced into ribbons
- 1 bag vegan mozzarella cheese shreds *I used Violife
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Lightly spray a large casserole dish with oil.
- Cook pasta according to package instructions, then drain and set aside.
- Prepare the Vegan Ricotta, and set aside.
- Make the pumpkin sauce: Warm a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the olive oil, onion and garlic and sauté for 3-4 minutes until translucent. Stir in the pumpkin, coconut milk, nutmeg, salt and pepper. Remove from heat.
- To the prepared casserole dish, add the pasta and pumpkin cream sauce. Stir to mix well, then stir in the spinach.
- Add spoonfuls of the vegan ricotta to the dish, and mix slightly but leave chunks of cheese intact. Cover with vegan mozzarella, if using, and bake for 15-20 minutes until warm and the cheese has melted. Serve and enjoy!
Notes
- Use gluten free pasta to make sure the dish is gluten free. I used Tinkyada brand rotini.
- Instead of making your own vegan ricotta, you can use store bought vegan ricotta, such as Kite Hill brand.
- For a lower fat sauce, you could substitute light coconut milk, or even unsweetened cashew milk.
- Feel free to simply use the pumpkin cream sauce over cooked noodles and skip the baking! It's so delicious you will want to pour it over everything.
Nutrition
Serving: 1of 8 servings | Calories: 450kcal | Carbohydrates: 45g | Protein: 13g | Fat: 26g | Saturated Fat: 10g | Sodium: 310mg | Potassium: 364mg | Fiber: 6g | Sugar: 3g | Vitamin A: 8976IU | Vitamin C: 6mg | Calcium: 42mg | Iron: 3mg
Did you make this recipe?Mention @nora_cooks_vegan_ or tag #noracooks!
Just made this for Vegan Friendsgiving, using brown rice pasta, almond ricotta and light coconut milk. Delicious! Made your Apple Crisp for dessert. Very well received.
Hi Susan. Your meal sounds amazing! Good choices! Thanks for sharing your wonderful review and feedback! I’m thrilled you loved the recipes!
Just made this for Vegan Friendsgiving, using brown rice pasta, almond ricotta and light coconut milk. Delicious! Made your Apple Crisp for dessert. Very well received.
Hello!
I love your recipes! I’m planning to make this one, but was wondering if it would be good with the tofu ricotta from your (best) lasagna recipe?
Thanks 🙂
You can use the tofu cashew ricotta if you want instead of the almond one. They’re both good! Thanks for loving my recipes. 🙂
I did it with the tofu ricotta at my Halloween party and the recipe was a hit! Everyone asked for the recipe (as usual with your recipes). Thanks again for your yummy recipes.
You bet, Nancy! Thank YOU for using my recipes and for sharing your fantastic feedback! I’m thrilled the pasta bake was a hit!
A lot of your recipes are winners for me (I’m looking at you, ginger molasses cookies), but unfortunately this one wasn’t. I made both the almond ricotta and cashew cheese sauce for this dish and I found that coupled with the pumpkin cream sauce, it was WAY too much sauce for 12 oz of noodles. I would recommend doing at least 16 oz (I used rotini). I also found the pumpkin cream sauce to be lacking in flavour complexity. All that being said, I can’t wait to try another recipe from you … I’m thinking the shepherd’s pie is up next!
Sorry this one wasn’t a winner for you! I hope you continue to find recipes to enjoy here.
I’m thinking that you put a cashew cheese sauce on it instead of the shredded cheese… and that’s why it was so soupy?
I’ve made this dish several times and it is delicious and easy! Last night I decided to try it with a bag of Trader Joe’s cauliflower gnocchi instead of pasta for a lower calorie option and wow – so good! I still followed the directions exactly as instructed, pan frying the gnocchi before mixing it with the pumpkin sauce and ricotta and then baking. Highly recommend this recipe either way!
I made this, and it was delicious, but my pumpkin sauce was more soupy than thick (like yours pictured) I still made it and it was great, but did I do something wrong? Thanks ?
My pumpkin sauce was fairly thin I’d say, not super thick. I’m glad you enjoyed it!
This dish is excellent, its one of our staples. I love all the sauce! I double up this recipe and have leftovers throughout the week. I’m suprised not more people have commented here. Maybe the pumpkin scares them away?🤣
Haha that could be possible, but I seriously love this recipe and I’m glad you do too!
Greeting Nory Balls, we’re back from our hiatus!!! 😨 Can you believe our last review was in September omg ‼️ We’ve been a bit preoccupied with kenma balls 🏐 at the moment so our deepest apologies. We would just like to let you know that this recipe SLAPPED. However, as per uge, it was quite eventful- quite firey 🔥(if you’ll pardon the pun). We would just like to also say we COMPLETELY disagree with Allie👎(you know who you are) who commented on February 21st 2022 at 5.15am PST. We can’t believe we believed her for even a second and were having doubts about this bodicular recipe! Allie👎 should improve her cooking skills as they were clearly not up to scratch. Also we are bri’ish (as formerly stated) and would like to question why you call pasta ‘noodles’- since these are VERY clearly two different things (one is pasta and one is noodles). Anyways to begin, all began smoothly (surprisingly) with Ed making the vegan ricotta and shuk making the sauce. However, you know us, and nothing ever goes smoothly. shuk was leaning over the stove like an big idiot, trying to reach the tin opener (for the pumpkin). Alas burger Ed was standing in the way completely (who do they think they are???) Suddenly, shuk felt a sharp wave of immense heat from the left of their face. They looked over with haste only to discover the entire left side of their hair erupting into flames….
By sheer instinct they managed to quickly put out their burning locks but the damage had already been done. Burnt hair. Burnt hair everywhere. All over the floor. Burnt hair smell. shuk was pulling chunks of their hair out giving themselves a bizarre haircut of sorts. It was NOT bodicular. It was UNsick. it was catastrophic 🙏. After recovering from that, the pasta bake was switfty layered together and shoved in the oven. It was complete (despite the incident). The glorious, bodacious pumpkin pasta bake. Sorry to bring her up again but seriously don’t know what Allie👎 was going on about because this was one of your BEST recipes yet 🥶 This slapped harder than my dog when he wants something (his name is kaaya (kaaya shmaaya)). Overall nora cooks/10, everyone was feasting. In fact it was SO good that shuk made another portion after a few days and Ed barged round to eat all of it.
Now we would love to ask some more questions:
1. We noticed you are now following Earthling Ed (not Ed from shuk&Ed) did we influence you in any way? since our last review mentioned how we met him (we love his work)
2. We also noticed you have a cat! How adorable- do you have any other pets? (and names please thank you)
3. What’s your favourite month and why?
We’ll hopefully be back soon for another review (hint hint it’s one we’ve revisited!) and we look forward to your reply
Lots of Love, shuk & Ed 🤯🧨
Hi Shuk and Ed! I always enjoy your cooking adventures! But I sure am sorry to hear about the burnt hair incident. I’m so glad no one was hurt too bad, but the hair will be missed I’m sure! Sounds like the pasta bake was enjoyed after all, it’s a recipe that doesn’t get much attention but I’m personally a big fan. 🙂 Love Earthling Ed and not sure why I hadn’t been following him for years really, I’m not super up-to-date with my followings on the Instagram, but I try. I’ve got three cats in fact, Sunny (the orange girl), Indra (tuxedo cutie boy) and Lila (our old lady kitty who’s a beauty). Favorite month has got to be July because summer in Oregon is incredible, plus it’s my birthday month! See ya next time, can’t wait to see what recipe review is coming! Take care.
I have been cooking/baking my way through Nora’s recipes and they are ALL amazing. I tried this one for the first time today, and will definitely be making it again. It’s a perfect cozy-weather comfort food with lots of flavor. I used chickpea pasta and subbed butternut squash for pumpkin (grocery store didn’t have any) and it was delicious. I made the almond ricotta as well, which added a nice creamy texture. I topped with Follow Your Heart mozzarella which is always my go-to. Thank you for another wonderful recipe!
Hi Kate. It is fun to hear you are taking a journey through my recipes! I’m glad you liked the pasta bake! I appreciate you taking the time to share your comments! Thank you for using my recipes!
Hi Nora! I’ve made this twice now, and it’s one of the best cheesy things I’ve had in a long time! I only changed the amounts of a couple things since I like my 13×11-inch casserole dish to be super full:
I cooked up about 5 cups of brown rice pasta, and also doubled the sauce. I left it in the oven for maybe an extra 10 minutes as well.
So glad you are enjoying it! Thanks.
Absolutely delicious!!!! Thank you for the recipes ?
You’re welcome!
I made this over the weekend. The almond ricotta is delicious. It was a bit dry, especially leftovers, I might add a little extra water next time. Overall delicious comfort food.
I’m glad to hear it was delicious!