Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

It was a super blustery day here in the Columbia Valley yesterday so Roasted Butternut Squash Soup seemed in order.  It’s grey and dull like some fall days can be in this valley.   To fix the “blah” that sometimes accompanies grey days, I made this vibrant, beautiful, colourful soup to lift my mood.

I find butternut squash pretty versatile and use it in many ways but one of my favourites is in soup.

The base of this Roasted Butternut Squash Soup avoids most of the common food restrictions.  It can be paleo, gluten-free, dairy free, vegetarian or vegan!

Take me to the Recipe

Method

Start by heating up your oven to 425 F.  Line a baking sheet with some parchment because, you know, cleaning up sucks.  Peel your butternut squash and cut in half lengthwise.  Remove the seeds and pulp.  Today, I separated the seeds from the pulp and tossed them in a saute pan to toast them up with a bit of olive oil and sea salt.

Chopping

Chop up your squash into bite sized pieces and add it to the baking sheet with some olive oil.  I also add a small onion (or a medium onion cut in half) and a head of garlic.  Leave the skins on the onion and the garlic as it provides protection from drying out during the roasting process.  I cut the top of the garlic (the pointy part) off and coat the exposed cloves with a little olive oil.  Likewise with the exposed surface of the onion.  If it is a small onion, I would just cut off a little from the top but if you are working with a medium onion, cut it in half and then coat the exposed onion with a little oil.

Roasting

Place the garlic and onion cut-side down in the pan and put in the oven to roast.  What you are looking for is the vegetables to be nice and soft.  I roasted mine for about 25 minutes.  If you don’t roast long enough, you miss out on developing some nice flavours and your soup may not blend as smooth.

Blending

Once the vegetables have finished roasting, remove them from the oven and let the onion and garlic cool so you can handle them.  Once you can hold them without frying your fingers off, peel the skin off.   Add the roasted butternut squash and the roasted garlic and onion to your blender.  I prefer using my blender compared to my immersion blender.  I love my immersion blender but I find I get a smoother, more velvety result with my blender.

Add the broth and blitz it up!  I always think it is a good practice to have a little bit more broth than a recipe calls for since, well, you know, not every butternut squash is the same size.  I add two cups of the broth and see where the consistency is at for what I like and then add more.

Optional Dairy

If I am looking for a nice creamy soup, I will add a half cup of 2% milk or heavy cream instead of more broth.  Sometimes, I will use a full 4 cups of broth instead of two and a half or three.  Remember, the recipe can’t see what is in your pot, that is why you are there!

Seasoning

Once you are happy with the consistency of your soup, it is time to season.  I start with some salt and pepper and then add the remaining seasonings.  As always, when you make a recipe, it is yours.  Taste it and if the seasoning isn’t to your liking, add a little more spice or tone it down with a little broth.  Soup is incredibly forgiving.

Heat to Serving Temperature

Often, during the process of blending, the temperature of the soup will get a little too cool and will need to be heated up before serving.  To this point, provided that you haven’t added any dairy like I did, you will have a vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free soup with a whack of flavour.

Optional Garnishes

Once my soup was hot again, I added sourdough croutons, crispy spicy genoa salami strips, toasted butternut squash seeds and a little bit of crema.  It was heavenly…..

Did you make this Roasted Butternut Squash Soup?  How did you like it?  Send me a note!

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5 from 1 vote

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Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

Rich, smooth, flavourful Butternut Squash Soup that can be made gluten free, dairy free and vegetarian while still having tons of flavour.

Course Soup

Cuisine Canadian

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 40 minutes

Total Time 50 minutes

Servings 8

Calories 74 kcal

Ingredients

• 1 butternut squash peeled and chopped
• 1 tbsp olive oil plus extra if needed
• 1 head garlic
• 1 yellow onion small
• 1 tsp sea salt or to taste
• 1 tsp black pepper or to taste
• 3 cup vegetable broth
• 1/2 tsp turmeric ground
• 1/2 tsp coriander ground
• 1/2 tsp cumin ground
• 1/4 tsp cardamom ground
• 1/4 tsp allspice ground
• salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 425 F and line a baking pan with parchment paper.

2. Add butternut squash to the pan and coat with the olive oil.  Use more if you need it.  The quantities are estimated as butternut squashes are not all the same size!

3. Cut the top or the pointy part of the head of garlic off to expose the cloves inside.  Coat with some olive oil and add to the pan.  Do not peel the garlic!  The skin helps to protect the garlic and keep it nice and soft in the roasting process.

4. Cut the top off the onion and coat with olive oil and add to pan.  Same instructions as the garlic.  Do not remove the skin of the onion yet!

5. Give a generous seasoning of sea salt and fresh ground pepper if you have it.  If not, regular salt and pepper certainly works.

6. Roast veggies until soft turning once during the roasting process.

7. Once the veggies are soft, remove the pan from the oven and let the onion and garlic cool until you can handle them to remove the skins.

8. Get your blender out and put the cooked butternut squash, onion and garlic into the blender and add the vegetable broth.

9. Blitz the veggies until they are smooth.  If you are open to dairy, I would add about 1/4 cup of milk or heavy cream and blend it.  If you are avoiding dairy, this soup does not need it.  

10. Pour the contents of the blender into a pot on the stove and slowly reheat.

11. Optional garnishes include sourdough croutons (link in blog post above) and crispy genoa salami (link in blog post above) with a drizzle of crema....  MMMMMM.. Obviously if you are gluten-free, ditch the sourdough croutons.  If you are vegetarian, eliminate the genoa and if you are dairy or vegan, drop the crema!  This can work for virtually any dietary restriction.

Recipe Notes

The nutrition facts are calculated without any of my little "extras".