My nut-free Paleo Pumpkin Bars are super easy to throw together and fabulous for your Halloween and Thanksgiving celebrations. We love them so much that we make them all year round. That’s because I’m a total pumpkin-a-holic!
I love all things pumpkin and squash, including these velvety nut-free Paleo Pumpkin Bars. Baking with the odd shaped, brightly colored vegetables known as winter squash is one of my favorite things! Pumpkin itself is a type of winter squash, and I use a variety of winter squash in my pumpkin recipes.
For these Paleo Pumpkin Bars I chose roasted acorn squash. You could just as easily select sugar pumpkin, a smaller, denser, tastier version of the more ubiquitous pumpkins used for jack-o’-lanterns. These Paleo Pumpkin Bars would also be great with other types of squash such as kabocha, butternut, buttercup, carnival, or delicata.
If you’re wondering how to choose a winter squash or pumpkin, look for deep saturated colors and make sure the skin is thick and clean. You don’t want to buy winter squash with dents, scuffs or cracks. Finally, check that the squash has a hard, cork-like stem.
I am often asked if canned pumpkin will work in my pumpkin recipes. For these Paleo Pumpkin Bars it will substantially change the recipe and you will need to alter your baking time quite a bit, and possibly make other changes to the recipe as well.
Fresh roasted pumpkin or another type of fresh roasted winter squash will get you the results you’re looking for with this recipe! To help you out, I have prepared a simple tutorial called How To Roast a Pumpkin in 10 Easy Steps.
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Paleo Pumpkin Bars
Ingredients
- ⅓ cup coconut flour
- ¼ teaspoon celtic sea salt
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 4 large eggs
- 1 cup fresh roasted pumpkin, or winter squash, will not work with canned pumpkin
- ⅓ cup honey
- ¼ cup coconut oil
- ½ cup chocolate chips
Instructions
- In a food processor, combine coconut flour, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon
- Pulse in eggs, pumpkin, honey, and oil until well combined
- Stir in half of the chocolate chips by hand
- Transfer batter to an 8 x 8 inch baking dish, sprinkle remaining chocolate chips over top
- Bake at 350°F for 20-30 minutes
- Cool and serve
I love the combination of chocolate and pumpkin and so have used chocolate chips in this gluten-free pumpkin bar recipe. If you don’t like chocolate, you can simply omit it or use raisins instead.
If cooking with fresh roasted pumpkin is not your thing, try my paleo pumpkin recipes that use canned pumpkin!
Barbara Whitfield says
I’ve been making this recipe for years and have added and increased spices, used fewer eggs, some applesauce when I didn’t have enough pumpkin, etc. and it always turns out delicious. Chocolate is one of the few flavors my husband can taste so I decided to add 1/4 cup of cocoa and we love it. If you are a chocoholic, give it a try. I also use a toaster oven (325* for 25 or 30 minutes).
Elana says
Thanks Barbara :-)
Tammy says
I roasted the pumpkins and they don’t have any flavor. Is that normal?
Elana says
Tammy, it likely means that the pumpkins were under ripe when they were picked.
EI says
I have always made these with canned pumpkin and it works beautiful.
Lynne langmaid says
Good that’s what I wondered. Using pumpkin seeds stead of choc kraits ins.
Heidi wixom says
Me too…
Shannon says
These were so yummy and easy to make. I was looking for an easy pumpkin recipe for a party. These have a really nice flavor and fluffy texture. I used canned pumpkin. I baked them longer than the recipe said, until they had a slight spring if touched. This is definitely a keeper recipe for me!
Elana says
Thanks Shannon!
nancy says
Oh my word! These just came out of the oven and they are…amazing!! And this is officially the first recipe with coconut flour that I have actually enjoyed. I will make these again and again. Thanks so much for the recipe.
Elana says
You’re welcome Nancy!
Maiken says
These are yum, yum, yummy! I use buttercup squash in place of pumpkin as I always have some cooked on hand. I find it hard to stop eating them.
Elana says
Glad to hear these are yummy Maiken!
Erin R says
Made these tonight! I followed the recipe exactly- except I substituted canned organic pumpkin. It was not very watery, so it worked well. I ended up cooking for about 40 minutes. I also used dark chocolate- which may have overpowered the pumpkin flavor a bit too much, but still delicious. I also used pumpkin pie spice instead of cinnamon. If I make these again, I will double the amount of pumpkin pie spice to give it more of a pumpkin-y flavor. :)
Elana says
Thanks Erin!
Jackie says
Does anyone know what are the nutrition facts?
Thanks
Elana says
Jackie, for more on that please go here:
https://elanaspantry.com/nutrition-information/
Have a great day!
Elana
Nirit says
I don’t know what I’m doing wrong but I just tried this one & it turned out the same as 99% of my other coconut flour attempts. I am not making any substitutions but the baked goods never seem to bake enough – they are way to mushy / uncooked. I left them in the oven extra time. I use bob’s redmill coconut flour.
any help would be appreciated as I would love to switch to using coconut flour if I can get it right! Thanks
Magda says
I would try a different coconut flour. I have seen more than once that they are not equal (specifically, Tropical Traditions is not the same as Bob’s). I happen to use TT and I’ve always had Elana’s recipes turn out.
Beth says
I’ve made this probably close to a dozen times since it was first posted last year.
Personally, I see little (if any) flavor payoff with using fresh roasted pumpkin. It costs more, and takes more time so I used canned every time and YES it does work! I am not sure why others would think it wouldn’t work.
My only suggestion for this recipe would be to increase bake time. I find that it usually takes 40-45 minutes in my oven. If I don’t cook this extra bit, it ends up too soft in the middle, similar to a soufflé texture.
I do not find this too “eggy”, but we like eggs and bake this longer so maybe it is not an issue for us.
I sometimes use the dairy-free Enjoy Life chocolate chips when baking for DF friends, but we use regular dark chocolate chips for us.
I bake in a glass Pyrex, and I rub a little coconut oil in the dish first. Not sure if this is necessary, but I have the coconut oil out already so why not.