5 Ingredient Pumpkin Tart with Maple Bacon
Savory, crispy, and full of fall flavors! 5 Ingredient Pumpkin Tart with Maple Bacon is packed with flavor but is incredibly easy to throw together. And even better, it only requires five ingredients.
5 Ingredient Recipes
Do you remember the show 5 Ingredient Fix? The premise was that one can make a delicious main dish, side dish, or dessert with five ingredients or fewer. The host was Claire Robinson of Food Network.
Although I did not have cable TV during the years that the show aired, I have found the old episodes and recipes online. I love the idea of easy, streamlined cooking with just a handful of ingredients.
Most recipes that make bold statements like “five ingredients or fewer” have some caveats. Normally these recipes count only the ingredients that need to be purchased. Water, salt, pepper, and oil are freebies and aren’t considered in the ingredient tally because people usually already have those hanging around.
Water is an obvious gimme, but is it deceptive not to count the salt, pepper, and oil? Maybe. But I don’t mind.
Recipes with short ingredient lists are enticing. And if I can count the ingredients (minus the salt, pepper, and oil) on one hand? Even better!
Sometimes this means we are taking advantage of prepared or packaged foods. In this recipe, we use canned pumpkin.
Canned Pumpkin
Pumpkin puree, or canned pumpkin, is cooked pumpkin that has been pureed into a smooth loose paste. Look for the cans that say 100 percent pure pumpkin to ensure that you aren’t buying pumpkin to which sugar, spices, or other flavoring has been added.
While it is easy to roast a small baking pumpkin like we did for campanelle with creamy pumpkin alfredo, sometimes there just isn’t time or energy to do it. Yes, fresh is always best, but canned is always on hand. I like to have an extra can or two in my pantry and stock up when it’s on sale.
Pumpkin is rich in vitamins A, C, and K as well as being a good source of fiber. The canned puree is convenient to stir into soups, breads, and pasta sauces for a boost of nutrition. Plus, it’s burnt orange, the color associated with my alma mater (Hook ‘em Horns!).
Lessons Learned
- You can skip scoring the border if you don’t care how it looks once it is baked. The border just makes it look prettier. But, don’t skip docking it all over with a fork prior to baking because this keeps the dough from puffing up.
- Don’t use thick-cut bacon for this as it takes too long to cook. Use regular sliced bacon.
- If you want to cheat and use a sixth ingredient, chop some fresh parsley or thyme and garnish the tart with that. I did.
Hat Tips
Many thanks to Recipe Tin Eats for the bacon tart with pumpkin and maple recipe.
5 Ingredient Pumpkin Tart with Maple Bacon
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 45 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: 6 servings 1x
Ingredients
- 1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed
- 1 cup canned pumpkin
- 1 shallot, chopped
- 8 slices bacon
- 2 Tbsp maple syrup
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Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400F/204C. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
- Unfold the thawed puff pastry dough on a flour-dusted surface. Lightly roll the pastry dough just to flatten out the creases and make it lie flat.
- Transfer the dough to the parchment paper and dock it all over with a fork to prevent it from puffing too much. Using a sharp knife or pizza cutter, score a ¼-inch border just inside each edge. Don’t cut all the way through but just deep enough to mark it.
- Tent the dough with aluminum foil or another sheet of parchment to prevent it from browning too quickly. Bake for 15 minutes, then remove from the oven. Remove the foil.
- Spread the pumpkin inside the scored border into an even layer. Distribute the shallots all over the pumpkin. Trim the bacon, if necessary, so that it is slightly wider than the puff pastry, about ¼-inch on each side. Place the bacon on top of the pumpkin, barely overlapping the slices.
- Bake for 20 minutes until golden brown. Remove from the oven and brush on 1 tablespoon of the maple syrup. Place the sheet back into the oven and bake for another 10-ish minutes until the bacon is deep brown. Tent with foil if the edges of the pastry are getting too dark.
- Remove from the oven and brush with the remaining tablespoon of maple syrup. Garnish with herbs, if desired. Allow to cool for 10 minutes before cutting and eating or the roof of your mouth will be very angry with you.
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