This healthy butternut squash recipe features roasted squash that’s irresistibly sweet and caramelized. Top with a dollop of Greek yogurt for a creamy counterpoint!
“How do you do it?” people ask us. For years we’ve balanced an intensely full professional life, and now we have a 7-month old to juggle. Despite it all, we cook. A lot. Because for us, cooking is stress relief. It’s the fun part of the day, where we get to blow off steam and create something beautiful or delicious (and hopefully both). To cook more, you must find the joy in it all. That’s why we wrote our healthy vegetarian cookbook Pretty Simple Cooking. And that’s why we write all the recipes here on A Couple Cooks: to help you find the joy, too.
Fitting cooking into your busy life
This past week I was in Madison, Wisconsin. I had the pleasure of meeting one of our recipe testers for our upcoming cookbook, Rochelle. Where most recipe testers made 1 or 2 recipes, Rochelle tested nearly 90 of the 100 recipes in the book! Clearly, she’s an overachiever.
As I chatted with Rochelle, she mentioned she works significantly more than 40 hours a week with her busy job as a graphic designer / art director. She said people ask her, how do you cook so often? To which she responds to them, How do you not cook?
Because for Rochelle, cooking is about joy! It’s the fun part of the day, where your labor results in a delicious meal on the table. Turns out there are many people who feel this way. When I asked one of our Instagram followers about how she cooks so much with three kids, she told me:
“Cooking saves my sanity most days! The planning, the process, the end result…it’s like an active kind of meditation for me. I found that the joy in cooking came AFTER I gave myself permission to just have fun with it. I love the joy that comes from serving friends and family through food. It’s worth the effort even with three littles running/crawling through the kitchen while I do it!”
We couldn’t say it better.
Making this healthy butternut squash recipe
So here’s a recipe that celebrates the joy of cooking and the changing season: roasted butternut squash! The genius idea of pairing roasted butternut squash with pickled onions comes from another Instagram follower, Krista. After she saw our 1-hour quick pickled onions recipe, she told me that she loves roasted butternut squash and serves it with pickled onions and a dollop of Greek yogurt.
We were instantly intrigued, and knew Alex and I had to try it for ourselves. Turns out the flavors and textures are the perfect match. The lightly sweet roasted butternut squash along with the tangy, bright purple pickled onions and cool, tart yogurt was heaven.
This healthy roasted butternut squash would be a fitting side dish for a Sunday dinner, or the bright, beautiful colors make it special enough for Thanksgiving. Or, turn it into a fall main dish: as a bowl meal with a grain like farro or quinoa, or mix it with penne pasta for a delicious fall treat.
How to cut butternut squash
Ok, here’s the hard part: how to cut butternut squash? We’ve got you covered. Here are the basic steps: and see the video below to watch it in action!
- First, slice off top of the squash, then the entire straight neck of the squash.
- Peel the neck and peel the round base.
- Cut the base in half and remove the seeds from each half with a spoon.
- Slice the neck into strips and then cubes.
- Then do the same with the rounded bottom part of the squash: slice it into strips and then cubes.
Video: How to cut butternut squash
Looking for butternut squash recipes?
It’s fall and roasted butternut squash recipes are in the air! Here are a few of our favorite roasted butternut squash recipes:
- Creamy Butternut Squash Risotto
- Butternut Squash Pasta
- Cozy Curried Butternut Squash Soup
- Easy Instant Pot Butternut Squash Soup
- Roasted Butternut Squash
- Za’atar-Spiced Butternut Squash Soup
- Lentil and Butternut Squash Soup with Chard
- Baked Butternut Squash Chips
- Easy Butternut Squash Soup
- And what about delicata squash? Here’s our Chipotle Black Bean Stuffed Delicata Squash recipe
Did you make this recipe?
If you make this roasted butternut squash recipe, we’d love to hear how it turned out. Leave a comment below or share a picture on Instagram and mention @acouplecooks.
This healthy butternut squash recipe is…
Vegetarian and gluten-free. For vegan and dairy-free, omit the yogurt or use Cashew Cream.
Print
Healthy Butternut Squash Recipe
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Total Time: 40 minutes
- Yield: 4 1x
Description
This healthy butternut squash recipe is baked in a hot oven and turns out irresistibly sweet and caramelized. If you’d like, top with a dollop of Greek yogurt for a creamy counterpoint! And pickled onions add a tangy flair.
Ingredients
- 1 large butternut squash (about 2 ½ pounds, 5 to 6 cups diced)
- 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ¾ teaspoon kosher salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 1 Hour Quick Pickled Onions, to serve
- Greek yogurt or cashew cream, to serve
Instructions
- Make the 1 Hour Quick Pickled Onions.
- Preheat the oven to 425F.
- Chop the butternut squash into 1/2″ cubes (see the video instructions). In a large bowl, mix the butternut squash with the olive oil, garlic powder, kosher salt, and a few grinds of black pepper. Pour the vegetables onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicon mat. Roast until tender, about 20 to 25 minutes.
- To serve, place the roasted butternut squash on a platter and top with pickled onions and dollops of Greek yogurt.
- Category: Side Dish
- Method: Baked
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: Butternut Squash, Roasted Squash, Roasted Butternut Squash, Pickled Onions
What a lovely story! I also struggle to understand how people don’t cook, at least for an hour or so a day – what do they eat?! That being said, my husband is currently working 14-hour days 6 days a week (with the commute) so I get why people who have to travel for work, or do shift work, would really struggle with it. When I was a full-time student and working full-time I turned to cooking as a way to relax. It can be a little tricky now to remember that not everything needs to be a blog post or photographed and it’s okay to cook sometimes just for fun!
Haha, we hear you over here! The only way to make it work in our lives was for it to be fun–but I agree, there are some lifestyles that make it hard to support being in the kitchen! To us, it’s a priority: even if it’s late night pasta with EVOO and a throw-together salad. Thanks for the comment!
I had some squash to use and thought I’d try this combination. We loved it! The flavors really mix well. Before finding the recipe, while chopping 6 kg of squash in total (!) on a rainy and dark winter Sunday morning, I felt a calmness that really helped after some very difficult months. Cooking is therapy. Thank you ❤
★★★★★
We couldn’t agree more that cooking is therapy — what a wonderful example of it! sorry to hear about the difficult months, but so glad that this squash could help to bring a spot of brightness!