diff --git a/dask_cuda/explicit_comms/dataframe/shuffle.py b/dask_cuda/explicit_comms/dataframe/shuffle.py
index 0ca1c48ee..854115fe0 100644
--- a/dask_cuda/explicit_comms/dataframe/shuffle.py
+++ b/dask_cuda/explicit_comms/dataframe/shuffle.py
@@ -328,7 +328,7 @@ async def shuffle_task(
     ignore_index: bool,
     num_rounds: int,
     batchsize: int,
-) -> List[DataFrame]:
+) -> Dict[int, DataFrame]:
     """Explicit-comms shuffle task
 
     This function is running on each worker participating in the shuffle.
@@ -360,8 +360,8 @@ async def shuffle_task(
 
     Returns
     -------
-    partitions: list of DataFrames
-        List of dataframe-partitions
+    partitions: dict
+        dict that maps each Partition ID to a dataframe-partition
     """
 
     proxify = get_proxify(s["worker"])
@@ -387,14 +387,13 @@ async def shuffle_task(
         )
 
     # Finally, we concatenate the output dataframes into the final output partitions
-    ret = []
+    ret = {}
     while out_part_id_to_dataframe_list:
-        ret.append(
-            proxify(
-                dd_concat(
-                    out_part_id_to_dataframe_list.popitem()[1],
-                    ignore_index=ignore_index,
-                )
+        part_id, dataframe_list = out_part_id_to_dataframe_list.popitem()
+        ret[part_id] = proxify(
+            dd_concat(
+                dataframe_list,
+                ignore_index=ignore_index,
             )
         )
         # For robustness, we yield this task to give Dask a chance to do bookkeeping
@@ -529,9 +528,12 @@ def shuffle(
 
     dsk = {}
     for rank in ranks:
-        for i, part_id in enumerate(rank_to_out_part_ids[rank]):
+        for part_id in rank_to_out_part_ids[rank]:
             dsk[(name, part_id)] = c.client.submit(
-                getitem, shuffle_result[rank], i, workers=[c.worker_addresses[rank]]
+                getitem,
+                shuffle_result[rank],
+                part_id,
+                workers=[c.worker_addresses[rank]],
             )
 
     # Create a distributed Dataframe from all the pieces
diff --git a/dask_cuda/tests/test_explicit_comms.py b/dask_cuda/tests/test_explicit_comms.py
index 1a15370b5..ae4e3332c 100644
--- a/dask_cuda/tests/test_explicit_comms.py
+++ b/dask_cuda/tests/test_explicit_comms.py
@@ -93,7 +93,7 @@ def check_partitions(df, npartitions):
         return True
 
 
-def _test_dataframe_shuffle(backend, protocol, n_workers):
+def _test_dataframe_shuffle(backend, protocol, n_workers, _partitions):
     if backend == "cudf":
         cudf = pytest.importorskip("cudf")
 
@@ -112,6 +112,9 @@ def _test_dataframe_shuffle(backend, protocol, n_workers):
             if backend == "cudf":
                 df = cudf.DataFrame.from_pandas(df)
 
+            if _partitions:
+                df["_partitions"] = 0
+
             for input_nparts in range(1, 5):
                 for output_nparts in range(1, 5):
                     ddf = dd.from_pandas(df.copy(), npartitions=input_nparts).persist(
@@ -123,33 +126,45 @@ def _test_dataframe_shuffle(backend, protocol, n_workers):
                         with dask.config.set(explicit_comms_batchsize=batchsize):
                             ddf = explicit_comms_shuffle(
                                 ddf,
-                                ["key"],
+                                ["_partitions"] if _partitions else ["key"],
                                 npartitions=output_nparts,
                                 batchsize=batchsize,
                             ).persist()
 
                             assert ddf.npartitions == output_nparts
 
-                            # Check that each partition hashes to the same value
-                            result = ddf.map_partitions(
-                                check_partitions, output_nparts
-                            ).compute()
-                            assert all(result.to_list())
-
-                            # Check the values (ignoring the row order)
-                            expected = df.sort_values("key")
-                            got = ddf.compute().sort_values("key")
-                            assert_eq(got, expected)
+                            if _partitions:
+                                # If "_partitions" is the hash key, we expect all but
+                                # the first partition to be empty
+                                assert_eq(ddf.partitions[0].compute(), df)
+                                assert all(
+                                    len(ddf.partitions[i].compute()) == 0
+                                    for i in range(1, ddf.npartitions)
+                                )
+                            else:
+                                # Check that each partition hashes to the same value
+                                result = ddf.map_partitions(
+                                    check_partitions, output_nparts
+                                ).compute()
+                                assert all(result.to_list())
+
+                                # Check the values (ignoring the row order)
+                                expected = df.sort_values("key")
+                                got = ddf.compute().sort_values("key")
+                                assert_eq(got, expected)
 
 
 @pytest.mark.parametrize("nworkers", [1, 2, 3])
 @pytest.mark.parametrize("backend", ["pandas", "cudf"])
 @pytest.mark.parametrize("protocol", ["tcp", "ucx"])
-def test_dataframe_shuffle(backend, protocol, nworkers):
+@pytest.mark.parametrize("_partitions", [True, False])
+def test_dataframe_shuffle(backend, protocol, nworkers, _partitions):
     if backend == "cudf":
         pytest.importorskip("cudf")
 
-    p = mp.Process(target=_test_dataframe_shuffle, args=(backend, protocol, nworkers))
+    p = mp.Process(
+        target=_test_dataframe_shuffle, args=(backend, protocol, nworkers, _partitions)
+    )
     p.start()
     p.join()
     assert not p.exitcode