A magical maple-pumpkin pasta sauce

Pumpkin, apple, maple: A sauce to fall for

The Bite subscribers can now join the conversation — click the speech bubble icon to leave a comment or click the heart to like this post. We recently finished up our series about seasonal, weeknight baking that included: this triple apple snacking cake, fig jam hand pies, a no-bake pear cheesecake with granola, and a better pumpkin bread. This week, a very fall pasta sauce.

I’ve been reading “The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again” by Catherine Price, and it’s been quietly radicalizing my afternoons. Price’s thesis is simple, but unsettling: modern digital life — especially social media — is turbocharging our anxieties and splintering our attention spans, making what she calls “True Fun” feel increasingly elusive.

True Fun, as Price describes it, is the kind of play that swallows you whole. “Self-consciousness and judgment—whether from yourself or other people—are anathema to flow, as is any form of distraction,” she writes. Think of an athlete in the middle of a game, or a musician enraptured by a melody or the rare magic of getting lost in a project or conversation and realizing an hour has evaporated.

Price encourages a “fun audit”: noticing which activities reliably put you into that state of flow. For some people, it’s bowling, or ceramics, or tinkering with motorcycles. For me, the usual suspects appear: swimming, dancing, watercolor painting, riding my bike — ideally by a body of water — and, crucially, cooking. 

Not necessarily the weeknight scramble, but the kind of cooking where you wander into the kitchen and see where your senses take you. When cooking freestyle for fun, I’ve had my share of disasters (one uniquely bad crispy rice and salmon salad comes to mind), but more often, these experiments turn into small moments of magic— meals that feel like a little celebration, because they’re built from curiosity and instinct. Such was the case with this pasta sauce packed with autumnal flavors like squash, pumpkin, maple syrup, apple and sage. 

Flow and fall flavors

One recent day off, I had a few empty hours and decided I would fill them by trying to have some true fun making a sauce that tasted like fall to me — the way Marcella Hazan’s tomato sauce, or Ina Garten’s garden pasta, feel emblematic of July down to my sun-baked bones.

I put the phone up, I set the stage (candles lit, window open, “Over the Garden Wall” soundtrack playing) and I raided the fridge. 

It began with diced white onion, a shallot for sweetness, garlic (I am unabashedly devoted to multi-allium dishes), and half a bulb of fennel. I let them sizzle in a mix of butter and a spoonful of pork fat—leftover from making bacon for this batch of cheddar-corn muffins—until the pan filled with strands of caramelized onion and fennel, glistening gold and brown, almost sticky, their aromas deepening and interlacing. I added a little more butter, then, with a thrill of reckless curiosity, drizzled in maple syrup, white miso, red pepper flakes, fennel seeds and oregano, watching each addition dissolve and bloom.

Next came the squash: a freezer sleeve of cubed butternut, tossed into the pan until it softened and began to caramelize at the edges, before being blitzed in the countertop blender into a smooth-ish, silky slurry and returned to the pot. A can of pumpkin puree, leftover from a recent loaf, joined in. Why both? To save a little food from waste, yes, but also because a fall sauce, to me, should feel more orange than golden, and the two squashes together offered a spectrum of taste: sweet, nutty, earthy and buttery. 

Still, it needed lift. I opened the crisper drawer and pulled out an apple, a sprig of rosemary and sage leaves so soft they felt like velvet. The apple grated into the sauce, tiny threads of sweetness weaving through the fat and squash—something I had been itching to try since watching Netflix’s “Nonnas.” The herbs steeped, releasing their piney, slightly peppery fragrance, alongside a spoonful of chicken bouillon, which nudged the sauce firmly into savory territory. 

After an hour of gentle simmering, I finished with a splash of apple cider vinegar, a stream of heavy cream and a dusting of parmesan, the final sauce glossy, fragrant, rich and unexpectedly bright. I paired it with rigatoni, Italian sausage, some toasted bread crumbs and a dollop of ricotta. Not every kitchen adventure ends in triumph (sometimes it’s just smoky, salty chaos), but this one did — and I hope it inspires you to dive in, trust your instincts and find a few go-to favorites of your own.

In the meantime, here’s how to make this sauce at home: 

RECIPE: Harvest Pasta Sauce with Pumpkin, Apple and Butternut Squash

Servings: 4–6 | Prep time: 15 minutes | Cook time: 1 hour

Ingredients

• 1 white onion, diced

• 1 shallot, diced

• 3–4 cloves garlic, minced

• ½ bulb fennel, diced

• 2 tbsp butter

• 1 tbsp pork fat (optional; leftover from bacon works beautifully)

• 1 tsp maple syrup

• 1 tsp white miso

• ¼ tsp red pepper flakes (adjust to taste)

• ½ tsp fennel seeds

• 1 tsp dried oregano

• 2 cups cubed butternut squash (fresh or frozen)

• 1 cup pumpkin puree (leftover or canned)

• 1 small apple, grated

• 1 sprig rosemary

• 4–5 sage leaves

• 1 tsp chicken bouillon (or ½ tsp bouillon paste)

• 1 tsp apple cider vinegar

• ¼ cup heavy cream

• ¼ cup freshly grated parmesan

• Salt and pepper, to taste

Optional for serving:

• Your preferred pasta

• Italian sausage, cooked

• Toasted breadcrumbs

• Ricotta
  

Instructions:

Cook the aromatics: In a large skillet or saucepan, heat the butter and pork fat over medium heat. Add the onion, shallot, garlic, and fennel. Sauté until the mixture forms glistening golden-brown strands and the aromas deepen, about 10–12 minutes.

Add flavorings: Stir in maple syrup, white miso, red pepper flakes, fennel seeds, and oregano. Cook for 1–2 minutes, letting the flavors bloom.

Add the squash: Toss in the cubed butternut squash and cook until edges begin to caramelize, 8–10 minutes. Transfer the mixture to a countertop blender and blend until smooth-ish. Return to the pan. Stir in pumpkin puree.

Brighten with apple and herbs: Grate the apple into the sauce. Add rosemary, sage, and chicken bouillon. Let the sauce simmer gently for about an hour, allowing flavors to meld and the sauce to thicken slightly.

Finish the sauce: Stir in a splash of apple cider vinegar and the heavy cream. Remove from heat and sprinkle in parmesan. Adjust salt and pepper to taste.

Serve: Toss with cooked pasta of your choice. Optionally, top with Italian sausage, toasted breadcrumbs, and a dollop of ricotta.

A note on cooking for fun

I’ve found that cooking for fun — True Fun — is, really, an exercise in attention. It’s tasting, adjusting, trusting instinct over instruction, and sometimes, to your delight, stumbling onto a combination you never imagined could be this good. And here’s the best part: anyone can try it.

A few small practices have helped me get into the groove. Put the phone away. Seriously. If you need a recipe, print it or—gasp—take notes by hand. Half-distracted cooking, phone in hand, is never going to feel like True Fun. Set the scene. Music you actually like, a few candles, maybe a window open to whatever air is out there. The kitchen doesn’t need to be pristine, but a little order helps the mind settle.

Then comes the question: improvise, pantry-first, “Chopped” style, or follow a recipe? Either way, the main point is the same: unplug, tune in to your senses and pay attention. There’s a rhythm to it, a small, absorbing joy in watching butter brown, garlic bloom, onions soften. You’re not just feeding yourself — you’re practicing presence, in the most delicious way possible.

Hey there! I’m still in the process of collecting questions for our very first Thanksgiving advice issue, and I’d love your help. What are your cooking conundrums, hosting dilemmas or table talk puzzles? Comment on this issue or send me an email at [email protected].

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What to make this week: Focaccia

This is the time of year when every surface seems to sprout a plate of something iced, dusted, spiced or glittered. And I love all of it — truly — but a few winters ago, a friend handed me a tidy, ribbon-tied parcel that turned out not to be a cookie at all, but a slab of focaccia. Sourdough, in her case, dimpled like a moon surface and scattered with smoked sea salt and a tangle of rosemary. It was the gift I tore into first. Something about getting a savory treat in the swirl of holiday sugar felt like a deep exhale.

So this year, I'm following her lead. A pan of focaccia is wildly easy, endlessly riffable and practically designed for batching — bake a few, wrap them in parchment, tuck in a little jar of homemade sauce or your own infused olive oil, and you’ve got a present that feels both generous and delightfully grown-up. If you want to try it yourself, start with the trusty Francis Lam recipe from the archives, or wander over to Claire Saffitz’s version which is truly fool-proof. Either way, it freezes like a dream and tastes like a small holiday rebellion, the very best kind.

What we’re reading and watching: “The Sun Also Rises” and “The Truffle Hunters”

Lately I’ve been letting myself sink back into Ernest Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises,” nudged there by Howie Southworth’s lyrical, persuasive essay on its enduring pleasures. I’d forgotten how much appetite drives the book — not just the doomed, looping desire between its characters, but the literal hungers that pulse through every scene. Howie reminded me of this: the parade of meals, the wine-soaked afternoons, the coffees that seem to anchor the characters as much as the clipped dialogue ever does. Rereading it with his observations in mind, I found myself underlining whole pages, noticing how the food sketches the interior landscape more honestly than the characters ever articulate. 

This week, I also cued up “The Truffle Hunters,” the tender Italian documentary I’ve adored since it debuted in 2020. It’s $3.99 to rent — worth every cent — and it’s exactly the sort of film that unfurls gently, like a ribbon of hand-cut pasta. You follow these aging men and their devoted dogs through damp forests in Northern Italy, watching them coax white-gold treasure from the earth with a mix of reverence and stubborn joy. It’s both melancholic and scrumptious, and since November ushers in white truffle season with black truffles close behind, it feels like the perfect moment to curl up with this quiet little marvel and let it perfume your evening.

Until next week,

Ashlie Stevens, senior food editor

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