Roasted Pumpkin with Feta

Dinner, Side Dish

Wedges of sweet roasted pumpkin, caramelised at the edges, scattered with salty feta and fragrant herbes de Provence. This isn't a traditional French dish, it's a modern riff that borrows the best of Provençal flavours. Stupid easy, looks impressive, works as a side or a light main.

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Prep Time 15 minutes mins

Cook Time 40 minutes mins

Total Time 55 minutes mins

Servings 4

Ingredients 

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• 1 kg pumpkin or butternut squash
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1 tbsp Herbes de Provence
• 100 gr feta
• 1 handful flat-leaf parsley
• salt and black pepper
• 1 tbsp pumpkin seeds optional, for serving

Equipment

baking tray

knife

chopping board

mixing bowl

Instructions

1. Preheat and prep

• Get your oven up to 200°C (180°C fan). While it heats, tackle the pumpkin. Butternut squash is the easiest option here, the skin peels off fairly easily. Traditional pumpkin varieties need a bit more knife work, but they caramelise beautifully. Cut into wedges roughly 3cm thick at the widest point. Consistency matters more than perfection, you want them to cook at the same rate.

2. Season the pumpkin

• In a small bowl, mix the olive oil with the honey. Arrange the pumpkin wedges in a single layer in a large baking tray, don't crowd them or they'll steam rather than roast. Drizzle over the honey-oil mixture and use your hands to coat each piece. Scatter over the herbes de Provence, and season generously with salt and pepper.

3. Roast until caramelised

• Slide into the oven and roast for 35-40 minutes, turning the wedges halfway through. You're looking for tender flesh (a knife should slide through easily) and golden, slightly charred edges. The honey will help them caramelise, don't panic if some bits look almost burnt, that's flavour.

4. Add the feta and finish

• Remove from the oven and immediately scatter over the crumbled feta while the pumpkin is still hot. The residual heat will soften the cheese slightly without melting it completely. Finish with the fresh parsley and pumpkin seeds if using. Serve warm.

Notes

• Squash choice: Butternut squash is the most reliable option, it holds its shape well and has a sweet, nutty flavour. Potimarron (red kuri squash) works brilliantly if you can find it, and the skin is thin enough to eat once roasted. Crown Prince or Delica are also excellent.
• Don’t skip the honey: It’s not there for sweetness alone, it helps the pumpkin caramelise and creates those sticky, golden edges that make this dish.
• Feta variations: Greek feta (sheep’s milk) has more tang and crumble. Danish or “salad cheese” is milder but won’t have the same punch. Use what you prefer, but proper feta makes a difference.
• Make it vegan: Skip the feta and finish with toasted pine nuts or walnuts and a drizzle of tahini. Still brilliant.
• Serving suggestions: Excellent alongside roast lamb or chicken. Also works as a light vegetarian main with crusty bread and a green salad, or tossed through couscous or lentils.

About this recipe

It’s true, roasted pumpkin with feta is not a French classic. Escoffier didn’t write about it, and it’s not turning up on many French menus either. It’s more at home in modern Australian or Middle Eastern cooking, where sweet roasted squash, salty cheese, and warm spices have been friends for a long time. But it happens to sit very comfortably with French flavours too, and that’s more than enough reason to make it.

The French relationship with courges

The French have been roasting “courges” which is their catch‑all word for squash and pumpkin, for a very long time. In Provence especially, where olive oil and dried herbs are almost a way of life, roasted vegetables are central to the table rather than an afterthought. The courge musquée de Provence, with its deep orange flesh and nutty sweetness, has been grown in the south for generations and turns up in gratins, soups, tarts, and simply roasted with olive oil and thyme on autumn tables.

Pumpkin season here runs roughly from September to March, and the markets really show it. You get ridged Musquée de Provence, chestnut‑flavoured potimarron (which only arrived from Japan in the 1950s and is now an autumn staple), and the long butternut that has quietly become the most widely grown variety. Each region leans in a different direction: gratins in the Alps, pumpkin soups in Brittany, sweet tarts in the Loire, and in the south, trays of roast pumpkin.

Where the feta pumpkin combination comes from

Pumpkin with feta is a more recent Mediterranean crossover. A French cook would traditionally reach for goat cheese or Gruyère with roasted squash, but the idea is the same: sweet vegetable, salty cheese, plenty of French herbs. Feta gives a sharper, salty contrast than goat cheese, cutting neatly through the sweetness of the pumpkin. The difference is in the way it behaves in the oven. Feta softens and partly melts, but it keeps its shape, so you end up with little bursts of salty cheese against the soft pumpkin rather than one smooth, melted layer.

This version leans into Provence to anchor it in a French kitchen. Herbes de Provence (thyme, rosemary, oregano, marjoram, parsley and basil) bring that familiar southern perfume. A drizzle of honey before roasting caramelises in the heat, deepens the sweetness, and gives the pumpkin those slightly sticky, golden edges that are impossible to resist. Both ingredients feel completely natural in a southern French recipe, even if the pumpkin feta pairing itself is a newer arrival.

Cutting the pumpkin

The hardest part of this whole dish is often just getting the pumpkin into pieces. The skin is tough, the flesh is dense, and a dull knife turns the job into a small battle. A sharp, solid knife and a steady cutting board make all the difference.

A good chef’s knife lets you work in calm, controlled strokes instead of hacking away. When most of the effort in a roasted pumpkin with feta dish is in the prep, having the right knife turns it from a chore into something almost satisfying.

Getting the roast right

For even cooking, the pumpkin needs to be cut into pieces that are roughly the same size. If they’re too thick, the outside colours while the inside stays firm. If you cut them too thin, they will dry out before they have time to caramelise. Pieces about 2 cm thick (wedges or cubes, whichever you prefer) hit the sweet spot for this roasted pumpkin feta recipe.

The oven has to be properly hot before the tray goes in, around 200°C. If the oven isn’t ready, the pumpkin will steam rather than roast, and you won’t get that lovely caramelisation that makes this dish special. Give the pieces a bit of space on the tray too because if they’re piled on top of each other, they sit in their own juices and steam instead of roasting in dry heat.

Add the feta towards the end of cooking rather than right at the beginning. Put it on in the last ten minutes, just long enough for it to soften and take a little colour. If it goes in too early, it dries out completely and you lose that creamy, salty contrast that makes the whole feta pumpkin dish so satisfying.