How to Cook Butternut Squash

How to Cook Butternut Squash
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Cooking Whole Butternut Squash

Cooking a whole butternut squash is surprisingly easy – and incredibly delicious at the same time! Just cut the squash in half by slicing through it with a chef’s knife. Then scoop out the seeds and pulp on the inside, and place the squash into a baking pan. Smear the top surface with olive oil and season if desired. Cook in a preheated oven on 350 for about an hour, depending on the size of the squash.

After cooking, you can serve each half as its own side dish – if you have enough to give one squash to every two people. Otherwise, you can cut the squash into quarters, or even into wedges. If you’re serving plated meals, you may want to consider placing another side dish into the curve of the wedge for aesthetic appeal. You can also scoop out the flesh of the butternut squash and mash it to use in squash soup, squash soufflé, or squash pie. You can also freeze the mashed squash in ice cube trays as a healthy homemade baby food.

Cooking Cubes of Butternut Squash

The difficulty arises when making a recipe that calls for peeled and cubed butternut squash. Many cooks have sliced through their fingers trying to cut a squash into perfect cubes. One way, albeit difficult, is to cut the raw squash into smaller pieces and then use a large chef’s knife to hack off the skin. Besides losing some of the squash’s flesh in the process, cutting uniform cubes in this manner is extremely difficult, especially because spaghetti squash is very hard to cut in general.

As an alternative, place the whole squash in boiling water for about five minutes. Then allow the squash to cool. You can then use a regular peeler to remove the peel – now soft – from the squash. Then cube the squash and cook as desired.

This post is part of the series: How to Cook Squash

Trying to find some exciting new vegetables recipes? Squash is a healthy, easy-to-cook vegetable. Just take a look at this series on how to cook squash for specific instructions about acorn squash, butternut squash, spaghetti squash, and yellow squash.

  1. All About Cooking Acorn Squash: A Step-By-Step Guide
  2. Cooking Yellow Squash: A Step-By-Step Tutorial
  3. Butternut Squash: Tips on Cooking and Preparation
  4. Cooking Spaghetti Squash: The Basics
  5. How to Freeze Summer Squash