Ina Garten's Favorite Canned Pumpkin Brand Is Perfect For Baking

When it comes time to whip out your famous pumpkin pie recipe, you don't need to spend all day carving, roasting, and pureeing pumpkin. For times like these, we turn to the canned food aisle. Pumpkin is one of those canned foods that celebrity chefs love to use, as it acts as a wicked time saver and makes their recipes far more accessible. In Ina Garten's case, she turns to one brand in particular, listing Libby's pumpkin puree on her website's list of 25 commonly used ingredients.

Different from pumpkin pie fillings, which typically come sweetened and spiced, Libby's is 100% pumpkin with no additives. It has a mild flavor, which can be built upon in a variety of sweet and savory dishes. Garten includes the canned puree in some of her own recipes, including a pumpkin mousse parfait and pumpkin spice cupcakes with maple frosting. While you may be wondering if using canned pumpkin is cheating, Garten has some comforting thoughts on the matter. "Pumpkin purée is not only fine, it's actually better," she said in an Instagram post. "People think they should cook the pumpkin, but it never comes out right because the pumpkin purée is a certain kind of pumpkin that's different than what we buy, like for jack-o'-lanterns." Instead, Libby's is made with Dickinson pumpkins, a beige colored ribless variety named after the founder of Libby's, Elijah Dickinson. This variety is known for its thick orange flesh and rich squash-like flavor.

Ina Garten isn't the only one who turns to Libby's when it's time to add a little bit of fall flavor to a dish. Libby's grows upwards of 90% of the world's pumpkins in Morton, Illinois and has become a household name amongst bakers. "Libby's recipe is delicious, reliable, and simple. It hits right every time," one commenter wrote on a Reddit thread dedicated to the subject. Several folks even say they've been using the pumpkin pie recipe on the back of Libby's can as a go-to for years. As far as we're concerned, Libby's is one of the best canned pumpkin for pumpkin pie appreciated far and wide for its silky smooth consistency, bright orange color, and fresh flavor. 

While Libby's may be Ina Garten's go-to canned pumpkin, it wasn't the top choice for folks performing taste tests similar to ours. At Serious Eats, taste testers found Libby's to be bland and watery when put up against their number one and two picks, Whole Foods 365 Organic Pumpkin Puree and the Farmer's Market iteration.  Although All Recipes also called out Libby's more runny nature, they named it the "freshest-tasting" of the bunch they tried and noted that it was sweeter after baking. That said, several folks on Reddit are of the mind that canned pumpkin is canned pumpkin and they are all pretty much the same. As one commenter pointed out, "Libbys cans 90% of the world's canned pumpkin, whether the label says Libbys or not. Unless it's organic canned pumpkin chances are almost certain it was canned by Libbys at their plant in Morton, Illinois."