Pumpkin Fettuccine with Brown Butter, Sage and Goat’s Cheese
Make this pumpkin fettuccine with a silky roasted pumpkin sauce, brown butter, crispy sage, pine nuts, and goat’s cheese for the ultimate autumn pasta!
The making of this pumpkin fettuccine was inspired by a creamy pumpkin risotto, drizzled with brown butter, sage, and chèvre, that I enjoyed at a restaurant recently. I couldn’t stop thinking about that combination, so naturally I had to turn it into a pasta dish.
Hand-cut fettuccine is tossed through the silkiest pumpkin sauce, made with roasted pumpkin, Parmigiano Reggiano, a touch of balsamic, and lemon. Pasta water transforms the pumpkin purée into a glossy sauce that clings perfectly to every ribbon. To finish, sage and pine nuts are fried in nutty brown butter before being drizzled all over the top with a generous grating of hard goat’s cheese.
A change from pumpkin alfredo fettuccine recipes, my creamy pumpkin fettuccine tastes a little like pumpkin tortelli, but without the effort of making stuffed pasta. Winner winner.
Why You’ll Love This Pumpkin Fettuccine Recipe
- That silky pumpkin sauce – Roasting the pumpkin first concentrates its sweetness before it’s blended with stock, olive oil and cheese. Pasta water does the rest of the work, turning the purée into a glossy sauce rather than something heavy or stodgy.
- Brown butter and sage – Is there a better combination with pumpkin? Browning the butter gives it a deep, nutty flavour while the sage becomes wonderfully crisp.
- It’s all about contrast – Sweet pumpkin, sharp goat’s cheese, salty Parmigiano, fresh lemon, nutty butter and crunchy pine nuts. Every ingredient has a job here.
- It feels special – Homemade fettuccine takes a little more time, but this is exactly the sort of pasta I love making when I want dinner to feel like a special occasion. It’s worth the effort!
Ingredients You’ll Need
- Fresh pasta dough – I use one batch of my master pasta dough and hand-cut it into fettuccine. Fresh egg pasta works best with this sauce because the wide ribbons give the pumpkin plenty of surface area to cling to. Don’t fancy making pasta from scratch? Good-quality fresh or dried fettuccine will absolutely work. Cook according to the packet instructions and make sure you reserve plenty of pasta water.
- Kent pumpkin – You’ll need roughly 750g of pumpkin, which should give you about 400g of flesh once roasted. Kent pumpkin has a lovely sweet flavour and creamy texture that blends beautifully.
- Extra virgin olive oil – Used for roasting the pumpkin and adding richness to the purée.
- Chicken stock – Just a little helps the pumpkin blend into a silky purée without diluting its flavour. Water can be used instead, or use vegetable stock to keep the dish vegetarian.
- Balsamic vinegar – Only a teaspoon! It adds acidity and depth rather than making the sauce taste of balsamic.
- Lemon juice – Pumpkin and brown butter are both quite rich, so lemon is important here. It lifts the whole sauce and keeps it from becoming overly sweet or heavy.
- Grana Padano or Parmigiano Reggiano – Adds saltiness, umami, and body to the pumpkin sauce. Parmesan cheese can be used as a substitute if needed.
- Unsalted butter – Unsalted gives you more control over the final seasoning. As it browns, the milk solids toast and develop that unmistakably nutty flavour.
- Fresh sage – The classic pairing for pumpkin. Frying the fresh sage leaves in the browning butter makes them beautifully crisp and perfumes the butter at the same time.
- Pine nuts – These toast directly in the butter, adding another layer of nuttiness and a little crunch.
- Hard goat’s cheese – I love the sharp, tangy contrast against the sweet pumpkin and brown butter. Grate it generously over the finished pasta. If you can’t find goat’s cheese, Parmigiano Reggiano or Grana Padano is the easiest substitute. Pecorino would also work if you want something sharper and saltier.
Can I Use Canned Pumpkin Purée?
You can, although roasting fresh pumpkin is my preference for this recipe. Roasting removes some of the pumpkin’s moisture while concentrating its flavour and sweetness, which gives the finished sauce much more depth.
If using canned pumpkin, make sure you’re buying 100% pure pumpkin purée, not pumpkin pie filling. You’ll need roughly 400g. Because canned purée can be thicker and drier than freshly roasted pumpkin, you may need a little extra stock or pasta water to get the sauce to the right consistency.
Butternut squash is also a great substitute if pumpkin isn’t available.
How to Make Pumpkin Fettuccine Pasta
Prepare the Ingredients
Prep and cut the pasta: Prepare one batch of my master pasta dough and let it rest. Roll it out to setting 6 on a Marcato Atlas (roughly the fourth-to-last setting on most machines), then hand-cut into ribbons. Arrange the ribbons in loose nests on a lined, floured tray until ready to cook. I like to keep them covered to prevent them from drying out!
Roast the pumpkin: Cut the pumpkin into large pieces, drizzle with olive oil and season generously with salt. Roast until completely tender and easily pierced with a knife. Let the pumpkin cool just enough to handle, then scrape the flesh away from the skin. I like to save the seeds for a snack or adding to…
Make the creamy pumpkin sauce: Blend all the sauce ingredients until completely smooth. I like to use a NutriBullet here because I want the purée to be really silky. Add another splash of stock or water if needed to get everything moving, but don’t make it too thin. The pasta water will loosen it further later.
Season: Taste and adjust the salt, lemon, or balsamic if needed. The sauce should taste slightly more intensely seasoned at this point because it will mellow once tossed with the pasta.
Make the brown butter: Melt the butter in a frying pan over medium heat. Once foaming, add the sage leaves and pine nuts, and cook, swirling frequently. The milk solids on the bottom will begin turning golden brown. The pine nuts should be toasted, the sage crisp, and the butter should smell deeply nutty. Watch it closely at this point. There is a very small window between beautifully browned butter and burnt butter!
Cool: As soon as those milk solids are golden brown, take the pan off the heat. The residual heat will continue cooking everything for a moment
Assemble and Serve
Cook the pasta: Cook the fresh fettuccine in a boiling pot of salted water just to al dente. This should only take a couple of minutes, although pasta that has been allowed to dry for longer may need slightly more time. Reserve a cup of pasta water.
Combine: Drain and transfer the fettuccine directly into the warm pumpkin sauce, and add a generous splash of pasta water. Toss vigorously over low heat, adding more pasta water a little at a time until the pumpkin purée loosens into a glossy sauce that coats every ribbon. This step is important. The starch in the pasta water helps the pumpkin and fat emulsify into a cohesive sauce, so don’t simply spoon the purée over the pasta.
Serve: Divide the mixture between warm bowls and drizzle the brown butter, sage and pine nuts over the top. Finish with a generous grating of hard goat’s cheese and enjoy warm.
My Tips for the Silkiest Pumpkin Fettuccine Pasta
- Roast rather than boil the pumpkin. Boiling adds water, while roasting removes moisture and concentrates the pumpkin’s natural flavour.
- Blend really well. This isn’t the time for a rustic mash. A high-powered blender gives you the ultra-smooth base that makes the finished sauce so silky.
- Keep the purée fairly thick initially. It’s much easier to loosen the sauce with pasta water than rescue one that’s already too thin.
- Don’t drain away all that pasta water. I always reserve at least a cup. You might not need it all, but having extra gives you complete control over the consistency.
- Finish the pasta in the sauce. Tossing the fettuccine, pumpkin purée and starchy pasta water together is what turns separate ingredients into a glossy sauce.
- Watch the brown butter closely. Look at the milk solids on the bottom of the pan rather than judging by the foam on top. Once they’re golden brown and smell nutty, you’re there.
What to Serve with Pumpkin Fettuccine
This pumpkin sage pasta is quite rich, so I like to keep anything served alongside it fresh and simple.
My ultimate crunchy green salad, dressed with plenty of lemon, is perfect, as are roasted broccolini or Brussels sprouts. If you’re serving the pasta as part of a larger meal, a simple piece of roasted chicken or fish works beautifully without competing with the sauce.
For me, though, a bowl of this with nothing more than a glass of wine alongside is pretty hard to beat.
Make Ahead and Storage
Make ahead: The pumpkin purée can be made up to 2 days ahead and kept in an airtight container in the fridge. Warm it gently in a frying pan before adding the cooked pasta and pasta water.
The fresh fettuccine can also be prepared ahead. Dust it generously with flour so the ribbons don’t stick together and store according to the instructions in my egg pasta dough recipe.
Leftovers: Fresh pasta is always best eaten immediately, particularly once it’s been tossed with a sauce like this. That said, leftovers can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 3 days.
Reheating: The pumpkin sauce will thicken considerably once chilled. Reheat gently in a frying pan with a splash of water or stock, tossing until the sauce loosens and becomes creamy again.
I don’t recommend freezing the assembled pasta, but the pumpkin purée itself freezes well for up to 3 months.
Pumpkin Fettuccine with Brown Butter, Sage and Goat’s Cheese
Ingredients
Pasta
- 1 x batch of my Master Pasta Dough
Pumpkin sauce
- 750 g Kent pumpkin yields roughly 400g flesh once roasted
- 3 tbsp EVOO
- 50 ml chicken stock or water can be used instead
- 1 tsp balsamic vinegar
- Juice of half a lemon
- 40 g grana padano or Parmigiano Reggiano
- Brown butter sauce
- 100 g butter unsalted
- 20 sage leaves
- 2 tbsp pine nuts
- Hard goat’s cheese like this one, to serve
Instructions
Pasta dough
- Make the pasta dough according to instructions here.
Shaping the fettuccine
- Divide the dough into four pieces. Work with one at a time (keep the rest covered so as not to dry out) – flatten the piece with your hand or a rolling pin before passing it through the thickest setting on your pasta machine. Fold the edges in to create a neat rectangle that fits the width of your pasta machine, and run it through the thickest setting again and repeat until your dough is uniform in shape and fits the width of the machine.
- Continue passing your dough through the machine, working through each thickness setting until you get to setting 6 on a Marcato atlas (typically fourth to last setting on most machines).
- Perform a double lamination if you want an extra smooth and silky dough.
- Take your rolled sheet and fold it in half, cutting at this seam to create two sheets roughly 25-30cm in length.
- Dust each side of the sheets generously with flour and roll one end until it meets the other.
- Use a large knife to cut ribbons at 0.5cm intervals.
- Set aside in a nest on a lined baking tray until you’re ready to use.
- Repeat the process with the remaining dough.
Pumpkin sauce
- Preheat oven to 180c (160c fan/350f)
- Cut the pumpkin into large pieces, drizzle with olive oil and season with salt.
- Roast the pumpkin for 45-50 minutes or until tender.
- Allow the pumpkin to cool enough to handle before scraping the flesh from the skin and adding directly to a blender (I like to use a Nutribullet to ensure a really silky and smooth sauce) along with all of the other ingredients and a good pinch of salt.
- Blitz until very smooth, adding a drizzle more stock/water if necessary to help bind into a smooth purée.
- Set aside until ready to use.
Finishing touches
- Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil and salt generously.
- Add the pumpkin purée to a sauté pan and keep warm.
- Cook the pasta until al dente – just a couple of minutes or a little longer if you’ve allowed your fettuccine to dry significantly.
- While the pasta is cooking, in another pan heat butter over a medium flame. Once it starts to bubble throw in the sage leaves and pine nuts, and continue cooking, whirling the pan occasionally as it begins to brown and everything becomes fragrant.
- Make sure you keep whirling the pan and as soon as its suitably brown, remove from the heat so as not to take it too far.
- When al dente, toss the pasta into the pumpkin sauce with a generous amount of pasta water to loosen and thin it out.
- Divide between bowls and serve drizzled with the brown butter sauce, and a grating of goat’s cheese.
