You’ll love how easy it is to make warmly spiced pumpkin butter in your Instant Pot pressure cooker!

Instant Pot pumpkin butter is a deliciously easy spread for fall–use it on biscuits, muffins, dinner rolls, or pancakes!

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Once fall rolls around each year, I start stocking my fridge and freezer with delicious spreads for all of our holiday baked goods.

There’s just something so comforting about a warmly spiced fruit butter to top off a freshly baked homemade bread or a homemade dinner roll!

Since we go apple picking each fall, I regularly make homemade Instant Pot apple butter, apple butter with maple syrup, or Instant Pot pumpkin apple butter.

But I know sometimes we busy moms don’t have time to peel and chop apples. Or maybe you just want a spread that doesn’t include apples. Or perhaps you don’t have an immersion blender used in those recipes.

So today I’m sharing another family favorite fall spread–this recipe for homemade Instant Pot pumpkin butter!

It’s on my list of the best Instant Pot pumpkin recipes, and for good reason.

This Instant Pot recipe is much faster than using your slow cooker to make pumpkin butter, so you can enjoy this pumpkin spice spread in a fraction of the time it normally takes!

What is Pumpkin Butter?

If you aren’t familiar with pumpkin butter, you may be surprised to find out that it doesn’t actually have butter in it!

In fact, no fruit butters generally contain butter. Instead, they’re a dairy-free spread made from cooking and pureeing fruit, usually with spices or sweeteners.

And if you’re wondering, yes, a pumpkin is botanically a fruit, since it contains the plant’s seed-bearing structures. So that’s why we classify this as a fruit butter.

In the case of homemade pumpkin butter, we cook canned pumpkin puree together with brown sugar for some depth of sweetness, pumpkin pie spice and cinnamon, plus a little apple juice or apple cider, and some vanilla extract (or maple extract!).

The result is a smooth condiment with flavors reminiscent of pumpkin pie!

This is one of the best pressure cooker recipes for fall, in my opinion!

How to Use Pumpkin Butter

There are so many delicious ways to enjoy this delicious pumpkin butter!

• Spread it onto any kind of bread–a warm biscuit or dinner roll, a piece of Instant Pot English muffin bread, a slice of sourdough toast, or a bagel.
• Use it as a topping for homemade fluffy pancakes or waffles.
• Swirl it into a bowl of warm Instant Pot oatmeal for breakfast.
• Eat it plain with some chopped pecans and a dollop of whipped cream.
• Make a yogurt parfait by layering some Instant Pot yogurt with pumpkin butter and homemade granola.
• Warm it up and serve it over a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream.

Is Pumpkin Butter Healthy?

Pumpkin butter does have some sugar in it, but it’s a relatively small amount when you consider you’ll probably only use 1-2 tablespoons of pumpkin butter at a time. This makes it generally lower in calories than many spreads, and a great way to satisfy your sweet tooth.

Pumpkin is also a good source of vitamin A, so you’ll love getting those extra vitamins in such an indulgent form!

How to Make Pumpkin Butter in the Instant Pot

It’s really easy to make this simple pumpkin butter! Cooking everything under pressure allows the flavors to meld together much faster.

Ingredients You’ll Need:

• Pumpkin puree
• Brown sugar
• Pumpkin pie spice
• Cinnamon
• Apple juice or cider
• Vanilla extract or maple extract

How to Make this Instant Pot Pumpkin Butter Recipe:

(Full printable recipe is available below)

Combine ingredients. First, you’ll combine all of the ingredients in the Instant Pot.

Take note that adding liquid (in this case, apple juice or cider) is important, because it keeps the puree from being too viscous. Without the liquid, the pumpkin puree can scorch and the pot won’t be able to reach pressure, which will result in the BURN error on your Instant Pot.

Some models of Instant Pot are more apt to receive a BURN error during cooking. I have three Instant Pots, and I purposely tested this recipe in the model that is most likely to get a BURN error (my DUO EVO Plus), just to make sure we had the right amount of liquid to cook properly but not be too runny.

Pressure cook. Next, you’ll cook at high pressure for 5 minutes, followed by a quick release of pressure (you can also allow a natural release if you’d prefer).

Stir, cool, and store. After the pressure has released, carefully remove the valve and stir the pumpkin butter. Transfer it to jars for storage, and allow to cool to room temperature before transferring to the fridge or freezer.

Notes and Adaptations:

• Store pumpkin butter in an airtight container or mason jars. You can also freeze jars of pumpkin butter–just make sure your jars are freezer-safe. To freeze smaller portions, you can freeze pumpkin butter in ice cube trays and then pop those cubes into a freezer bag.
• If you prefer to skip the canned pumpkin and use homemade pumpkin puree made with those little pie pumpkins instead, you’ll need about 2 cups.
• I like using apple juice or apple cider, but you can use water in a pinch.
• If you want sweeter pumpkin butter, increase the brown sugar to 3/4 cup.
• You can use maple syrup instead of brown sugar, if desired.