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Pumpkin Fruit Dip

This quick and simple dip is creamy, full of warm spices, and perfect for dipping your favorite fall fruits.
Kid friendly
Small bowl of pumpkin dip served with apple slices, banana and grapes.
Prep time: 5 minutes
Makes: 3 Cups
Nutrition Facts: View label

Ingredients

1 can (15 ounce) pumpkin (about 1 ¾ cups cooked pumpkin)
1 cup low-fat ricotta cheese, plain yogurt or cream cheese
¾ cup sugar
1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon
½ teaspoon nutmeg

Directions

  1. Wash hands with soap and water.
  2. In a large bowl, combine pumpkin, ricotta cheese, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add sugar a little at a time to reach desired sweetness.  Stir until smooth.
  3. Refrigerate leftovers within 2 hours.

Notes

  • Serve with apple slices, bananas or grapes. 
  • Try using a mixture of ricotta, yogurt, or cream cheese.
  • For a smoother texture, use a hand mixer or food processor to mix ingredients.

Comments

This pumpkin dip recipe is a hit with my kiddos! I used non-fat vanilla Greek yogurt and left out the sugar. My youngest loves pumpkin so this was a great way to get some into her everyday life. She’s not often enthusiastic about foods but when she tried this she made sure to tell me “this is really good!” and then asked for more! I’m looking forward to sending this to school with her as part of her lunch! 

So tasty! I served this often in the fall to classes, kids clubs, and adults. I first made it with low-fat cream cheese, thinking the ricotta wouldn't be as good of a texture. Next time I used ricotta and it was still a good texture but with more protein and less fat. Another time I used dairy free (silk) yogurt which was a bit thin but still tasty. Its great with apples or graham crackers.  

Some of the written Pumpkin Fruit Dip comments from Josephine County, Oregon 5th grade students:

  • I like the texture, smell and taste. I wish this was in our school cafeteria. This is the best thing on the planet!
  • I really like that it tastes like pumpkin pie and that is my favorite pie. 
  • That was awesome, it makes me very happy because I am a pumpkin pie person. I would definitely eat it again
  • I like it, it tasted like pumpkin pie it was the best thing I have ever tasted!!
  • Please make this food kid-approved. I am going to make this food at home

This is a great recipe for a Halloween celebration instead of serving apples with caramel dip. It definitely does not need 3/4 cup sugar, though. I only added a little bit more than a tablespoon of sugar and used plain yogurt. Serve with sweet ripe apples and pears and avoid all the added sugar!

This is an easy recipe to adjust the amount of sugar to meet personal tastes.  We suggest adding the sugar slowly and tasting to judge the amount that you like best.

The Food Hero Team

This recipe is phenomenal!!! I used plain, non-fat Greek yogurt and left out the sugar. It was fantastic! I dipped apples in it and it was plenty sweet enough with the fruit!

Made this for home and for my daughters kinder school class (in place of the school requested caramel dip for a harvest party), its great!  So fast, kids loved taste testing different dairy options.  Did add much less sugar than the upper 3/4 cup for our families tastes.

This is good with ginger snaps too; Yum!

I made this recipe with cream cheese, and served it with graham crackers - YUM!  Using 3/4 cup sugar definitely made it sweet, so I'd like to try cutting the sugar amount in half next time.

I've made this recipe a few times now, and we love it! I have a dairy allergy, so we use Tofutti vegan cream cheese and it tastes wonderful. I also think coconut milk yogurt would work really well, but would add a little more sugar unless you used plain, unsweetened yogurt. I also made this for a couple schools, and over 300 kids apprived of it in one school alone! Very delicious!

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