The Best Spices for Pumpkin Soup: Thyme, Curry, Nutmeg and the Aromatics Under Them

Pumpkin soup takes two main directions. One is savory and herbal: a University of Tennessee Extension recipe builds on onion, carrot and celery cooked in butter, seasoned with dried thyme, poultry seasoning and salt, and finished with heavy cream.¹ The other is warm-spiced: the Food Hero curried pumpkin soup published on MedlinePlus uses curry powder, nutmeg, a little honey, salt and pepper with evaporated milk.² This page covers what each seasoning does, when to add it, and one pumpkin soup with its own place on UNESCO’s heritage list. Quantities appear only where a named recipe gives them.

At a glance

Two baseline recipes

These are the publishers’ own recipes, not a house standard.

The core seasonings and what each one does

Onion and the aromatic base

Onion (Allium cepa) is in the amaryllis family, Amaryllidaceae.⁴ Both recipes use it, and the UT recipe adds carrot and celery.²¹ Which onion to use is a matter of taste. Adding onion at more than one point to layer its flavor is a technique some cooks use; neither recipe does it, and we found no test of it.

Thyme and poultry seasoning: the savory herbs

The UT recipe stirs 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme and 1/2 teaspoon poultry seasoning in with the pumpkin and salt.¹ Thyme (Thymus vulgaris) is in the mint family, Lamiaceae,⁵ and its sharp, savory character comes from an oil whose characteristic constituents are thymol and carvacrol.⁶ Poultry seasoning adds more of the same direction: McCormick’s culinary blend lists thyme, sage, marjoram, rosemary, black pepper and nutmeg.³

America’s Test Kitchen classes thyme as a hearty herb to add early in cooking, since its flavor compounds are somewhat more heat-stable.⁷ The University of Delaware’s guide suggests using thyme in moderate amounts, 1 to 2 teaspoons for 6 servings.⁸ A pumpkin soup does not simmer for hours, so early addition is a reasonable default (Method). See cooking with thyme, too much thyme and sage.

Curry powder and nutmeg: the warm-spiced direction

The Food Hero recipe stirs a teaspoon of curry powder in with the flour and adds 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg with the pumpkin and milk.² Curry powder is a blend with no fixed recipe; the USDA’s purchasing specification lists turmeric, coriander, fenugreek, cinnamon, cumin, black pepper, ginger and cardamom as ingredients it should include, without proportions.⁹ See curry powder, nutmeg and too much nutmeg.

Some cooks reach for pumpkin pie spice here instead; neither recipe uses it.

Garlic: optional

Neither recipe uses garlic.²¹ If you add fresh garlic, America’s Test Kitchen’s advice is to put it in after the onion has softened, because garlic added too early can burn and turn acrid and bitter.¹⁰ See garlic and garlic powder.

Black pepper

The Food Hero recipe uses 1/4 teaspoon pepper.² Black pepper’s characteristic flavor comes mainly from piperine.¹¹ The UT recipe has no pepper at all.¹ Whether fresh-ground is hotter or more lemony than pre-ground is a widely held view; we found no measurement. See black pepper.

Broth, cream and evaporated milk

Broth is most of the liquid in both recipes: chicken broth in the UT version, vegetable broth in the Food Hero one.²¹ Richness comes from two places in each: butter and heavy cream in the UT soup, margarine and evaporated milk in the Food Hero soup.²¹ Taste for salt after the broth goes in; that is common practice.

Soup joumou: Haiti’s pumpkin soup

Soup joumou, the pumpkin soup Haitians eat on January 1, Independence Day, was added to UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2021.¹² UNESCO describes it as made with giraumon, a variety of pumpkin, plus vegetables, plantains, meat, pasta and spices, but does not list the spices.¹² See Haitian spices.

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