Butternut squash is used for preparing a variety of dishes. Using it is definitely easy and you can prepare various innovative dishes by utilizing this fruit as the prime ingredient.
Butternut squash, also known as, butternut pumpkin in Australia, refers to a kind of fruit which is mostly available during harvests in winter. This fruit resembles a pumpkin in taste and appearance, and is used to prepare many dishes, using different procedures. Moreover it can also be mashed into breads, casseroles, muffins, and many more products. Enlisted below are a few simple recipes.
Baked Butternut Squash
- The oven needs to be preheated at 350° F.
- Wash the fruit thoroughly and cut it down the middle at its length.
- Scoop out the seeds and the crud.
- Coat the exposed and meaty parts of the fruit with butter or olive oil.
- Use salt and pepper as per taste, with a little bit of ground ginger. If you want the dish to taste sweet, use cinnamon sugar or nutmeg.
- Place the side which is cut down in the baking pan with about half an inch of water.
- Let it cook till it is tender. To check if it is sufficiently done, poke it with a fork.
- It will take around an hour for it to get cooked. Let the squash turn light brown in color.
Serve hot either in the shell itself or cut it into quarters. You can even scoop out the meat and roast this fruit using the same methodology.
Preparing Butternut Squash Soup
Ingredients
- Butternut Squash, 4
- Powdered Chicken Broth, 4 packets
- Onion, (chopped) 1
- Olive Oil, 1 tbsp.
- Fresh Cream, ½ cup
- Water, 4 cups
- Salt, as per taste
- Pepper, as per taste
Procedure
- Cut the butternut squash into half.
- As mentioned earlier, cook the fruit with the cut side down on the baking sheet at 350° F for around 45 minutes.
- Scoop the flesh that is cooked.
- Sauté the onion in olive oil. Add squash, water, broth powder, salt, and pepper to it.
- Let this mixture boil and cook till the fruit is tender. This will take around 30 minutes.
- Now blend the mixture. Mix it till it attains a smooth texture.
- Put this mixture back in the pan and heat it for 20 minutes. Do not bring to boil.
- Serve it hot with a scoop of ice cream on top of the soup.
Now the best part is that, apart from these two preparations you can experiment a lot and make different dishes using this fruit. For instance, you can bake it as described above, till it becomes tender and then stuff it using a mixture of sautéed onions, chopped nuts, cooked brown rice, and top it with cheese. Bake the stuffed fruit till the cheese melts and serve it hot.
You can use this fruit for making several dishes. A combination of various ingredients can be used along with it to prepare dishes like breads, desserts, starters, etc.