We are well and truly into the cooler months, which means its pumpkin season! We have seen the start of the Queensland season already, and quality looks superb.

Pumpkins are a popular household staple in the winter months and can be used in an abundance of sweet treats (think pumpkin cakes and pies, pumpkin scones and fudge), or delicious savoury dishes (pumpkin soup, roast pumpkin, pumpkin pizza).

The world of pumpkins is a surprisingly diverse one – therefore it can be hard to pick the best pumpkin to suit your culinary needs. We’ve compiled this handy guide to helping you buy the right pumpkin to make your dishes shine every time.

Butternut Pumpkin

The butternut is perhaps the most well-known and versatile pumpkin available. Butternuts have a dry, dense yet sweet interior, making them perfect for roasting and seasoning.

Because butternuts are a little drier than other varieties, they are also perfect for blending up to make delicious pumpkin soups. The extra sweetness the butternut carries makes it the perfect choice for sweet dishes, like the classic pumpkin pie.

They are quite pale on the outside, but the flesh is often a deep orange and makes for a wonderful nutty flavour burst.

Jap Pumpkin

The Jap Pumpkin is one of the sweeter kinds of pumpkin available in Australia. Its sweetness makes it the perfect kind to incorporate into salads and quiches, or as an excellent base to build a meal around.

To retain their depth of flavour, these pumpkins are best cooked whole, in their tough skin, before scooping out the seeds and putting the soft flesh to use.

Grey Pumpkin

Home-grown here in Queensland and a firm winter favourite, the Grey pumpkin is largely popular throughout the world. Besides its characteristic blue-grey and deeply ribbed skin, it’s best known for its amazing shelf life – 100 to 140 days.

The Grey pumpkin is perfect in baked dishes and lends itself well to boiling, making it great for mashes and soups – pureed Queensland pumpkins are perfect for pumpkin scones.