Our 28 Best Butternut Squash Recipes

This luscious squash-studded bread pudding is the ideal accompaniment to roasted meats and birds, or cut it into large squares and serve as a main course with a green salad on the side.

This simple tart requires just eight ingredients, including butternut squash, all-butter puff pastry, cream cheese, cinnamon, and apricot preserves. 

San Francisco chef Matthew Accarrino of SPQR looks to cornstarch to thicken the creamy milk-based roasted garlic sauce here. It’s a rich but healthy combination of winter squash with cabbage, all topped with crunchy hazelnuts.

“This classic northern-Italian combo of sage-Parmesan-gnocchi-brown-butter is one of my top five desert-island dishes,” Andrew Zimmern writes.

"Wonton wrappers are terrific for making ravioli when you don't have time to make homemade pasta," says Jill Donenfeld. The wontons here, filled with mashed butternut squash and roasted garlic, get nicely crispy when sautéed in a touch of oil, but they're also delicious simply steamed.

Cumin, coriander and cayenne bring warmth and spice to this tender roasted squash.

Chicken quarters roasted with golden squash and sage are nice for a chilly autumn evening. To help the squash to brown evenly, be sure to spoon off the fat from the roasting pan after removing the breasts.

In this risotto-like dish, the pressure cooker's intense heat penetrates the pine nuts' outer membranes and makes them soft inside.

Squash and sage are a classic—and delicious—combination.

For ultrafluffy potatoes, Grace Parisi presses them through a ricer. To achieve a similar texture, pass the potatoes through a food mill or a fine-mesh sieve. If you choose to mash them by hand, be gentle; otherwise, the potatoes will turn gluey.

This sweet, savory, and cheesy tart is perfect for fall and winter.

Chef Dean Fearing loves the holiday feel of butternut squash, especially when it's combined with ginger, as it is for his smooth, gently sweet soup. He tops it with whipped cream flecked with chopped pecans for a number of reasons: "Usually holiday soups have a dollop of cream—adding pecans gives it a dollop of flavor. And crunch. I think everything should have a little bit of crunch to it. "

Sweet squash is the perfect counterpoint to spicy sausage in this warming winter pasta.

Cooling, cilantro-flecked sour cream brings tang to this sweet roasted squash.

This crusty baked polenta is swirled with mashed butternut squash and smoked Gouda cheese.

Feel free to swap any type of winter squash for the butternut used in this simple and satisfying risotto.

Sweet puréed squash comes together with nutty polenta in this warming gratin.

This creamy soup gets a jolt of texture from supercrispy pancetta.

The filling for these turnovers also makes a terrific side dish on its own.

Laura Rege combines some of fall’s best flavors in this rustic whole-wheat pasta dish. For the best results, seek out a great-quality unrefined hazelnut oil, which imbues the whole dish with a lovely nuttiness.

This dish from chef Mourad Lahlou of Aziza in San Francisco comes together in four steps, and since the sausage is cooked separately, it’s a meal you can serve to both vegetarians and meat-eaters at the same time.

Savory lamb, salty olives, and ras el hanout (a North African spice blend of coriander, cumin, and a range of warm spices) are balanced by sweet butternut squash, apricots, and a touch of honey.

“The idea for this Roasted Butternut Squash Parmesan occurred as I was making butternut squash schnitzel,” Raquel Pelzel writes. “Cut into planks, dipped in egg, dredged through panko, and fried, this was more or less the base layer for parm, except I used squash instead of eggplant (or chicken).”

Nancy Oakes makes this gorgeous risotto with Venere black rice, a naturally black short-grain rice. The glossy grains are especially striking served with the golden butternut squash puree and creamy white burrata. 

Starchy, slightly sweet plantains are a natural addition to winter squash. Here, New York chef JJ Johnson simmers both, along with canned chickpeas, in coconut milk that’s been steeped with aromatics. The result is creamy, fragrant, and so comforting.

“A sprinkling of marash chile flakes and curry leaves with coconut oil add a bit of heat and an intoxicating fragrance,” Nik Sharma writes, “while the black mustard seeds add a hint of nuttiness.”

The neck of the butternut squash is easy to peel and cube, making it perfect for easy pasta dishes. This recipe is a great way to use up that pesky bottom half, as here the halved squash is simply baked until soft, and then the flesh is scooped out.

With a superflaky crust (the secret: frozen grated butter) and a lightly spiced sweet-savory winter squash filling, this rustic galette from Food & Wine’s Justin Chapple makes a perfect vegetarian meal; serve it with a green salad.