As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Spätzle, also spelled spatzle and spaetzle, are a cool little dumpling common around the Alps: Northern Italians eat them, as do the Austrians and Germans. Spaetzle are even found in parts of France. They are made with flour, eggs, usually milk — and something else, these are squash spaetzle.
I love squash spatzle because it’s a great way to use pureed butternut, hubbard, kabocha or acorn squashes, or the various pie pumpkins you can grow.
Prepping Squash Spatzle
You should use either freshly made puree, or thawed puree from the freezer. Don’t use canned pumpkin as it’s the wrong color and texture.
Generally speaking I make a squash puree by slicing a squash in half, scooping out the seeds, then roasting it, cut side down, in a 350F oven until the flesh is soft — usually an hour. You can leave the stringy bits in if you are using a food processor.
Which is what I do. Buzzing the cooked squash in a food processor makes an excellent puree. You can also run it through a food mill or potato ricer.
If you use butternut squash you will be fine, but if you use a wetter squash like a hubbard or a pumpkin, drain the puree over a fine-meshed sieve for an hour to remove excess water.
Making Spaetzle
How to form squash spaetzle? I use a spätzle maker, but you could use a large-holed cheese grater or a food mill or potato ricer with the coarsest plates installed. You can even flick the batter into the boiling water by hand with a spoon. But the maker I just linked to costs less than $25, so it’s worth buying if you plan on making more spaetzle.
The batter is usually thicker than pancake batter, but still liquid enough to flow slowly. You don’t want it falling through the holes in a spaetzle maker too fast; you want more like an ooze. This is why the amount of flour in the squash spaetzle recipe below is variable: So you can adjust it.
Spätzle are usually boiled in salty water, then shocked in ice water, then sauteed in butter or oil. You can skip this last step if you are serving them in broth.
Serving and Storing
Oh man, so many options for serving squash spaetzle!
With mushrooms and greens, wild or farmed, shredded meat — I prefer white meat with these spaetzle — little balls of mozzarella, sauerkraut, caramelized onions, you name it. I really like to add toasted pepitas and a splash of squash seed oil to get some squash-on-squash action.
If you are not moving from one step to the other — boiling, shocking in ice water, then frying in butter — you will want to put your cooled squash spaetzle on a baking sheet, mix them with a little oil, then spread them out in one layer. They will keep like this for several hours.
Any longer and you need to refrigerate them. You can freeze spaetzle, but it’s tricky. You need to lay them out very loosely, so they don’t touch each other, and freeze. Then put them in freezer bags.
A better way is to dehydrate your spaetzle. Lay them out in one layer on a drying tray and dehydrate completely, which can take 16 hours or more. Be sure to turn them from time to time so all sides dry evenly. Store the dried squash spaetzle in a jar, ideally with one of those dessicant packets.
Cooking these dried ones will be a chewier experience than fresh, but they’re kinda cool in their own way.
If you like squash spaetzle, give my other spatzle recipes a try. I have recipes for spaetzle with spinach or other greens, acorn flour, and rye flour.
If you liked this recipe, please leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rating and a comment below; I’d love to hear how everything went. If you’re on Instagram, share a picture and tag me at huntgathercook.
Squash or Pumpkin Spaetzle
Ingredients
- 3 eggs
- 1 cup whole milk
- 1 cup pumpkin or squash puree
- 3 to 4 cups flour
- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
Instructions
- Whisk the eggs, milk, squash puree, nutmeg and salt together until combined.
- Mix in 1 cup of flour at a time until you get a batter the consistency of muffin batter: Thick and gloopy, loose enough to pour slowly, but firm enough to not immediately run through the tines of a fork.
- Bring a large pot of salty water to a boil and set up another large bowl full of ice water.
- Using a spätzle maker, a colander with large holes, a potato ricer with large holes, a food mill with a coarse plate, or a large-holed cheese grater, move the batter over the holes to drop little bits into the water.
- They are ready when they float. Skim them off with a slotted spoon or spider skimmer and drop the spaetzle into the ice water.
- When they are all done, pour off the ice water and arrange the spätzle on a sheet pan. Toss with a little oil and set aside. To serve, you can either put the dumplings in broth or saute them in fat or oil.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I have a friend who, to be honest, is not much of a cook, but she’s German and her mother taught her to use a spaetzli board. She can flick that dough off as even as I can with a maker. I can’t wait to try this one, Hank. You’ve never let me down.
Is there any particular type of flour required? I’m hoping a whole grain or seed flour might work?
Kim: I have done them with a portion of gluten-free flour (acorn), and that works. Maybe use 30% seed flour and the rest whole grain?
Is this a good recipe to use sweet potatoes? Got fall crop potatoes that need
preserving.
Connie: I am almost certain this would work with pureed sweet potatoes.