Pumpkin Lasagna with Brown Butter Sage Cream Sauce

Pumpkin Lasagna with Brown Butter Cream Sage Sauce is an easy and delicious Italian comfort food!  I like to make pumpkin the star of this lasagna. The filling is simple – with pure pumpkin puree, egg, nutmeg, and lots of grated parmesan cheese. It allows the taste of the pumpkin to really shine! Lots of recipes call for ricotta cheese and other complex flavors such as crushed amaretto cookies, but I think it’s best to keep the filling simple – pure pumpkin layered with a super creamy brown butter sauce.  

To make this a super-easy recipe, use canned pumpkin and oven-ready lasagna sheets.  Or if you are so inclined, bake a couple of pie pumpkins for a really fresh tasting pumpkin puree and freeze half for another day.

Watch the video to see how easy it is to make.

My sous chef, Kiki, inspected the pumpkins to make sure they were properly cut.

I roasted them and pureed the pulp in a food processor. Don’t forget to save the seeds and roast those as well.

Half of the pumpkin puree is ready for the freezer. The rest will be used for the lasagna.

You can see the creamy layers of pumpkin in the lasagna. Delicious!

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Pumpkin Lasagna with Brown Butter Sage Cream Sauce

This a super-easy and delicious recipe, You can use canned pumpkin and oven-ready lasagna sheets for fast assembly. The key to the recipe is the Brown Butter Cream Sauce! Add cream cheese to brown butter for a super rich and yummy sauce. Like all lasagnas, this one freezes well too.

Course Pasta

Prep Time 30 minutes

Cook Time 45 minutes

Total Time 1 hour 15 minutes

Servings 12

Author Homemade Italian Cooking with Cara

Ingredients

• 3 cups 100% pumpkin puree canned or homemade
• 1 egg
• 1 ½ cups freshly grated parmesan cheese
• 1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 stick butter salted
• 8 sage leaves
• ⅓ cup cream
• 8 oz cream cheese
• ⅓ cup milk plus more if needed to thin out the sauce
• 12 ounces oven-ready lasagna sheets enough to fit 3 layers in a 13 x 9 pan
• 1/2 cup breadcrumbs

Instructions

• To make the filling, mix pumpkin, egg, 1 cup of the parmesan cheese, nutmeg, salt and pepper together in a bowl. Set aside.
• To make the cream sauce, melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat on the stove. Add the whole sage leaves and let crisp up as the butter browns. Carefully watch the butter since it can quickly burn. Once the butter has just started to brown, turn down the heat to low, and remove the fried sage leaves. Add the cream to the pan and whisk gently. Add the cream cheese in chunks to the pan and let it slowly melt into the cream sauce. Add the milk and keep stirring until you get a creamy sauce. If it is too thick, add more milk. It needs to be a spreadable consistency.
• To assemble the casserole, put ½ cup of cream sauce on the bottom of a 13 x 9 baking pan. Add one layer of lasagna sheets. Spread half of the pumpkin over the lasagna sheets. Spread ⅓ of the cream sauce over the pumpkin. Top with another layer of lasagna sheet. Repeat pumpkin and cream sauce layer. Top with lasagna sheets. Spread the remaining 1/3 of the cream sauce on the top layer to cover all the pasta. Mix the breadcrumbs and the rest of the parmesan cheese and sprinkle on top of the cream sauce. Cover with foil.
• Bake at 375 degrees for 30-40 minutes or until the top is golden brown and the sides are bubbling. If needed, remove the foil from the pan the last 10-15 minutes to brown the top.
• Cut in squares and serve immediately.