Butternut Squash Soup
Hi Gardening and Wellness Friends 👋🏼
Photo by Hanna Balan on Unsplash
Photo by Artiom Vallat on Unsplash
If you planted winter squash at the beginning of the fall season back in August, then you will be harvesting winter squash any day now. There are so many winter squash available to grow in Florida, but one of my favorite recipes is this soup made with butternut. This soup can be substituted with it's smaller and sweeter counterpart, honeynut squash. Both make an excellent warm, cozy weather soup. Bonus if you also planted sage and rosemary at the beginning of the fall season. They’re excellent added to this soup.
When I make this soup I plan ahead and have homemade chicken broth available. It’s not required, but I find my own homemade provides more depth of flavor than a store bought chicken or vegetable broth. I love to make big batches of broth and store it in the freezer. On the days I want to make a quick soup like this, I pull out some broth and get to cooking. When you’re making this soup, choose what suits you.
This soup freezes wonderfully. The only modification is leaving the heavy cream out when freezing. Before adding the cream, remove the amount of soup you want to freeze and then add cream to the remaining. I’ve included that in the instructions to remind us to freeze some.
Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion cut into thick wedges
3 pounds butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cubed
3 garlic cloves in their paper wrapper
2 Granny Smith apples peeled and cut into 8 chunks
1 inch of fresh ginger
5 cups of chicken or vegetable broth
Up to ½ cup of heavy cream (add to your desired creaminess)
5 fresh sage leaves
2 sprigs of rosemary
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
salt
pepper
Instructions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees
Place the cubed butternut squash, the chunked apples, the onion wedges, the garlic, and the ginger on a baking sheet
Add the olive oil, 1 teaspoon of salt and ½ teaspoon of pepper. Toss until coated
Place in the oven for 35 to 40 minutes. Flip vegetables halfway through to allow them to roast evenly.
While the vegetables are roasting add the broth to a saucepan. Add the sprigs of rosemary and the sage leaves. Bring the pot to a low simmer for 20 minutes and then remove from heat.
After 35 minutes of vegetables roasting check to see if the squash can be pierced with a fork and the apples and onions are caramelized. If so, remove from heat. If not yet fork tender, give them additional time, checking every 5 minutes if the squash can be pierced with a fork.
Once done roasting, remove the skins of the garlic and the ginger and add them to a large pot along with the roasted vegetables and all of the drippings.
Strain the broth. Add 4 cups to the large pot with the vegetables.
With an immersion blender blend all ingredients. Add additional broth to bring to your desired consistency. If you don’t have an immersion blender, separate this into several batches to blend with a blender. Add each blended batch to a pot and stir together once all batches are completed.
Add salt and pepper to your liking.
At this point if you’d like to save some soup to freeze, put that amount to the side.
With the remaining soup add heavy cream to your liking to bring the right amount of creamy goodness to the soup.
Add soup to bowls and garnish with sage leaves
Enjoy!
If you decide to freeze some of this soup, allow it to cool completely. In a perfect world I’d freeze these in glass jars and containers, but realistically they are more prone to cracking if not filled perfectly for expansion. So, using Ziplock bags I’ve found are the next best option. They stack easily on top of each other in the freezer and when thawing the bags can be ripped open and the frozen soup placed right into the pot to reheat. As a reminder, add your heavy cream after the soup has heated
Tell me, have you ever made butternut squash soup, and do you have a favorite recipe? Share it below. I’d love to try it
Until next time…..
🌿To our health and the health of our gardens🌿
Tina