Squash Soup

Chef Susur Lee is renowned for his creative, complex, Asian-inflected dishes at his restaurants in Toronto, Manhattan and Singapore. But one of his favorite cold-weather comfort recipes is this remarkably simple squash soup, which he sweetens with a little honey and garnishes with roasted pumpkin seeds.

"It smelled like autumn in a bowl," said chef Gavin Kaysen, describing Tim Hollingsworth's fragrant, fabulous soup.

This winter acorn squash stew is perfect for cooking with all your leftover Thanksgiving turkey.

Lee Hefter loves the spices used for pumpkin pie, so he makes this silky, fragrant soup with them.

Jeanette Peabody, the chef at Hamiltons' at First & Main in Charlottesville, Virginia, makes this luscious, slightly sweet soup with butternut squash from Dave Matthews's Best of What's Around and coconut milk instead of heavy cream. The coconut milk gives the soup a silky texture and a hint of exotic nuttiness.

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. Plus, this is Texas, and pecans are Texas."

This quick soup highlights fall's best flavors. For a fun twist, it uses spaghetti squash like noodles.

Joanne Chang switches up the flavors of Thanksgiving's classic squash soup with a host of Asian ingredients, including curry paste, ginger and coconut milk.

"Butternut squash and apples come into season around the same time in Vermont," Jeremy Silansky says, "and they go so well together." But this soup's key ingredient is its smoked-cheddar garnish. Silansky gets his cheese from Grafton Village Cheese Company, a local producer with national distribution that cold-smokes aged cheddar over a maple-wood fire.

Adding collard greens, bell pepper, corn and carrot to a rustic butternut squash soup is Mary Ellen Diaz's clever way of making it even more healthy. Together these vegetables deliver vitamins A and C as well as fiber and powerful antioxidants.

This light yet hearty, healthy soup from Philadelphia chef Michael Solomonov gets extra flavor from charred onion and warm, sweet spices like ginger and cinnamon.