This soup is as quick & easy as it is tasty. Everything for the soup is roasted in the oven on a single sheet pan. Bacon is laid over the top of butternut squash and onion, so the bacon fat renders into the vegetables as they roast. Once roasted, the vegetables are tossed into a soup pot (or blender) along with stock and additional spices.
That's it - then the soup is topped with crispy bacon and ready to be served. This is one of the most flavorful butternut squash soups I've made, thanks to the bacon and generous dose of Cajun spices (paprika, oregano, and thyme).
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Recipe
Ingredients
FOR ROASTING
- 2 medium butternut squash (about 4.5 pounds total, or 3.5-4 pounds precut)
- 1 yellow onion
- 6 ounces bacon
- 2 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- 1 teaspoon thyme
- 1 teaspoon oregano
- 1 teaspoon salt
FINISHING THE SOUP
- 5 cups chicken stock (or vegetable stock)
- 2 teaspoon paprika
- 1 tablespoon chile oil optional
Instructions
PREPARE INGREDIENTS
- Preheat the oven to 400℉
- Peel butternut squash and cut into rough 1-inch cubes. Cut the onion in half, then into quarters so they are a similar size to the butternut squash cubes.2 medium butternut squash, 1 yellow onion
ROAST
- Place butternut squash and onions on a baking sheet. Toss with olive oil and spices. Then lay bacon over the top.6 ounces bacon, 2 tablespoon olive oil, 1 teaspoon paprika, 1 teaspoon thyme, 1 teaspoon oregano, 1 teaspoon salt
- Roast for about 20 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender and bacon is done to your liking. If the bacon is done early, simply remove it and set aside on a paper-towel lined plate. If it needs to cook longer than the vegetables, return to over after removing the veggies.
BLEND SOUP
- Once vegetables are tender, they need to be pureed with stock. - If using a blender: add ¼ of vegetables with 1 cup of stock and blend, then transfer to a soup pot. Repeat in batches until all soup is pureed and added to the soup pot. Add more stock to soup pot to thin to desired consistency. *Be careful with hot soup in a blender, cover with a towel to hold the lid down, and never over-fill.- If using an immersion blender: add all vegetables to soup pot along with 3-4 cups of stock. Blend! Add more stock until you reach the desired consistency.5 cups chicken stock
SEASON TO TASTE
- Taste soup, then add in more paprika, 1 teaspoon at a time, until it's to your liking. Add salt to taste.2 teaspoon paprika
- Top with a chile oil if desired. Serve with crumbled bacon.
Notes
Nutrition
Working with butternut squash
I grow my own butternut squash so I have stash in the basement that I cook through each winter. Whether grown fresh or bought from the store, they store for weeks on your counter, or even a couple months as long as they are in a cool, dry, dark place with air flow.
If you have butternut squash lying around, this soup becomes a pantry meal for any night of the week. (As opposed to pre-cut butternut squash which will go bad in the fridge within a week).
Precut butternut squash will work in this recipe, however. I'm not a stranger to buying it myself!
Whole butternut squash
Working with whole butternut squash is easier than it might seem, and there's a big shortcut if you don't want to peel and dice it that I'll get to shortly.
Peeling a butternut squash is fairly easy with one (or maybe two) swipes of a vegetable peeler. I like to peel the bulb portion first so I can keep a firm grip on the neck. (Once the neck is peeled, it can be slippery and hard to hold while peeling the bulbous end).
After peeling the butternut squash, cut the longer neck from the rounded bowl end. The neck is pure flesh and dices as easily as a large potato. If the center of the neck looks a little spongy, that's ok. It's likely on the older end of its shelf life but will be perfectly fine after it's roasted and pureed into soup.
The bulbous bowl end has the seed cavity and requires just a little extra work. Separate out the seeds (and roast them like pumpkin seeds). Scoop any stringy flesh away with a spoon and discard it. Slice it up then cut it into cubes.
A roasting shortcut
You can cut the butternut squash in half and roast them open-faced, as demonstrated by The Forked Spoon. This is similar to how acorn squash are often prepared, if you're familiar with that.
When they are done roasting, simply scoop the flesh out and toss it in the blender (or pot) to be pureed. This is a quicker and easier option than cutting and cubing the squash. However, the extra time to cut the squash into cubes will create more caramelized surface area. So it's up to you!
How much to buy
A medium butternut squash weighs about 2 pounds and a large one weighs up to 3 pounds. I've also used a giant one that was 4.5 pounds before. You'll lose about 2-3 ounces after peeling the skin and removing the seeds.
This recipe doesn't need an exact amount of butternut squash - a little more or a little less will work out just fine. Just adjust the amount of stock you use.
Alternatively, you can buy two larger butternut squash, perhaps about 3 pounds each (instead of 2 pounds). Peel the neck for the soup and reserve the bottom bowl-like halves for roasting & stuffing for another dinner. The nice thing about this is there's no need to peel the bottoms.
Pre-cut from the store
When a soup leaves bite-sized chunks of vegetables in the broth (instead of pureeing all of it like this one), the pre-cut chunks are often too big. Then I end up dicing the chunks further. It barely saves time, if any, once I have to dice it myself.
However, a pureed soup like this one (as well as this other roasted butternut squash soup with Thanksgiving spices) is a perfect use for pre-cut butternut squash. It will definitely save you time if you plan to roast it at whatever size chunks you bought it in.
Each grocery store sells butternut squash in different sized containers - be sure to get enough to equal about 4 pounds (16 ounces is a pound).
Pre cut butternut squash is not as fresh and can sometimes turn a little mealy if it dries out. But if you find some that look fresh, you can give it a try.
Using other winter squash
This soup will work great with honeynut, kabocha squash, acorn squash or even sugar pie pumpkins. The flavor will be very similar.
- Honeynut squash: a smaller cousin to the butternut that's sweeter and has a stronger flavor. Peel & cut up like a butternut, or roast halved.
- Kabocha squash: the dryer flesh will absorb more of the bacon fat, intensifying the flavor
- Acorn squash: while the skin is edible, I don't think it would blend well into a soup like this (unless you have a Vitamix - it might make good work of the skin)
- Sugar pie pumpkin: these have a milder squash flavor, so play with the spices to adjust.
Some of these squash are hard to peel since you have to navigate around the ridges, a near impossible task. Instead, cut them in half and scoop out the seeds. Rub the spices on the flesh, then place on the baking sheet face up. Top with bacon, then roast until tender all of the way through. Turn them face-down for the last 10 minutes of cooking to encourage caramelization on the exposed flesh.
Depending on the size of the squash you use, it might take 30-45 minutes to roast them all of the way through. Keep an eye on your bacon and remove it before it burns. Check after 15 minutes, then in increments of 2-5 minutes.
Once the squash are tender all of the way through, remove them from the oven. Scoop out the flesh with a spoon and pureed as instructed.
Roasting for flavor
Using roasted butternut squash in a soup creates a deeper flavor than if you were to simmer the squash in the broth. The high heat caramelizes the sugars in the squash and intensifies its nuttiness. Cutting the butternut squash into chunks before roasting also allows for more surface area to caramelize. Meanwhile, some of the bacon fat is absorbed into the flesh.
The dried spices also benefit from roasting in the fat (both olive oil and bacon), as many of the flavor compounds are fat soluble. Dried herbs can also hold up to heat better than fresh herbs.
If you substitute in fresh herbs, tuck them under the butternut squash so they don't burn, or add them to the soup pot and let the soup simmer to release their flavor.
Roasting shortcut
Roast the seeds
One of my favorite snacks is roasted butternut squash seeds (and other winter squash). That's probably a very odd thing to consider a favorite snack but I look forward to them every time I cut open a fresh winter squash.
After the butternut squash and bacon are done roasting for the soup, you can lower the oven temperature and roast the seeds. You could also scoop up some of the rendered bacon fat from the roasting tray, that's already flavored with the spices, and use that to flavor your squash seeds.
Each butternut squash has about a ½ cup of seeds. There's no need to rinse them, just set them aside in a bowl, trying to separate them from the stringy flesh as much as possible.
Mix a half-cup of seeds with a half-TBSP of olive oil (or your saved bacon fat), ¼ teaspoon salt, and ½ teaspoon spices. Roast at 250 for about 30 minutes. If you used two butternut squash for this soup, you'll have about 1 cup of seeds. In that case, use 1 tablespoon of olive oil (or bacon fat), ½ teaspoon salt, and ¾-1 teaspoon spices. Don't use extra oil or fat, because it will pool and the seeds will be a bit too oily when they are done.
Get the recipe for extra crispy roasted winter squash seeds.
More recipes
If you are looking for a more traditional roasted butternut squash soup. Cookie + Kate has one seasoned with garlic and a pinch of nutmeg, or try Love & Lemon's version with sage, rosemary, and ginger. For something totally out of the box, try Half Baked Harvest's brie & cheddar butternut soup.
Try some other butternut squash recipes or cook with a variety of winter squashes this season.
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