Salad with Pepitas and Pumpkin Dressing

Top your salad with pepitas AND a creamy tangy pumpkin dressing. Soooo perfect for Fall!

What Are Pepitas?

Pepitas and pumpkin seeds are kind of the same thing. But pepitas don’t have a shell and are found in only select pumpkin varieties.

Pepitas add such a good crunch and nutty favor to salads. I thought it would be fun to really bring out their pumpkininess by putting some pumpkin on the salad too.

Pumpkin Salad Dressing

I went with a salad dressing since it seemed so simple to open a can of puree and whip it up. It was simple and really tasty. I used the pumpkin puree with mayonnaise, vinegar, syrup, cinnamon, salt, and cayenne pepper and put everything into a blender. Then you can drizzle in water until it gets to the perfect consistency.

It’s a sweet and creamy dressing with a bit of tang. And it’s got that gorgeous bright orange color that makes this salad exactly the right thing for Fall.

Enjoy!

Salad with Pepitas and Pumpkin Dressing

Contributor: Christine Pittman

Top your salad with pepitas AND a creamy tangy pumpkin dressing. Soooo perfect for Fall!

• Author: Christine Pittman
• Prep Time: 10 minutes
• Cook Time: 0 minutes
• Total Time: 10 minutes
• Yield: 4 servings 1x
• Category: Side Dish
• Method: Mix
• Cuisine: American

Print Recipe

Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• ½ cup mayonnaise
• 2 Tbsp. cider vinegar
• 3 Tbsp. maple syrup
• ½ tsp. cinnamon
• ½ tsp. salt
• ⅛ tsp. cayenne pepper
• 1–2 Tbsp. water
• 8 cups arugula leaves
• 2 Tbsp. dried cranberries
• 2 Tbsp. store-bought roasted and salted pepitas

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

1. Measure the pumpkin, mayonnaise, vinegar, syrup, cinnamon, salt, and cayenne into a blender. Pulse. Drizzle in enough water so that it blends together well and thins to the thickness of a ranch dressing.
2. Divide the arugula between 4 salad plates. Top with the cranberries and pepitas.
3. Drizzle each salad with 2 tablespoons of dressing. Cover and refrigerate remaining dressing for 3-4 days.

Notes

The salad dressing yield is 1 and ½ cups. You will only need ½ cup to make salad for 4 people. The salad dressing recipe can be halved, however I find that it doesn’t blend as easily in my blender when there isn’t as much in there. I make the full batch and refrigerate the rest for up to 3-4 days.

This post originally appeared in October 2016 and was revised and republished in October 2021.