A couple of years ago, I wanted to incorporate more vegetarian and vegan meals into my family’s regular dinner rotation and asked my friend Kelly at The Family Freezer for ideas. Her Spiced Butternut Squash Soup, which is very similar to this recipe, has stayed in our fall repertoire ever since, and I’ve even served it on holidays: For a quick and easy Halloween dinner before Trick-or-Treat and as a Thanksgiving side.
I always make a couple of bags for the freezer at the beginning of the fall when butternut squash is at its best. Fresh butternut freezes beautifully, and this meal requires no cooking ahead of time (the squash goes into the slow cooker raw, softens up while it cooks, and becomes a silken puree with a quick blend right at the end).
Garnished with coconut milk, seeds and chives or green onions, it’s a gorgeous, colorful celebration of the beginning of harvest season.
Enjoy!
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Equipment
- Immersion blender or regular blender
Ingredients
- 1 pound butternut squash, peeled, seeds removed and cubed (most markets sell squash pre-cubed, or you can cube one yourself by following this helpful tutorial from Gimme Some Oven)
- 1 can full-fat coconut milk
- 1 Vidalia or yellow onion, sliced
- 2 cloves of garlic, chopped
- 1 tbsp mild, diced green chiles (you can find these canned at grocery stores; for more heat, choose medium or hot varieties)
- 1 tbsp yellow curry powder
- ½ tsp cumin
- ½ tsp turmeric
- ½ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp pepper
- sprinkle of red pepper flakes
Optional garnish:
- drizzle of coconut milk
- pumpkin seeds (pepitas) or butternut squash seeds
- chopped chives or green onions
Instructions
- Place all ingredients into your slow cooker, secure lid and set to low for four hours or until squash is tender enough to mash with a fork.
- Using an immersion blender, puree soup to desired texture (you can also carefully transfer the soup in batches to a conventional blender and puree that way).
- Garnish with a drizzle of coconut milk, snipped chives and pumpkin or butternut squash seeds.
To make it a freezer meal:
- Place all ingredients except for the optional garnishes into a gallon freezer-safe bag, label the bag and freeze for up to three months.
- When you want to cook the soup, thaw in the refrigerator overnight, then follow steps 1 through 3 above on the day you want to serve it.
