Butternut Squash Soup

With fresh Ginger, Rosemary, and Thyme this soup will be your new fall staple!
**Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Meat Free, Nut Free, does contain seeds**

Butternut squash soup is one of my favorite fall meals, it’s so simple and can be frozen for future meals. The creaminess of the soup comes from pureeing the squash down so there are relatively few ingredients in this making the meal very low effort! You can customize your own version of the soup by changing the type of cream added or using different toppings, but these are my personal favorites right now. Let’s walk through the simple steps!

Start with raw squash. You’ll cute it in half and then scoop out the seeds from the small pocket so that you’re left with a clean shell, skin on. I find that you get the best flavor on this soup by roasting these halves whole and then adding just the roasted flesh to your soup pot.

While your roasted squash are cooling, assemble your other ingredients to get the stock going! Because you’ll be blending everything together you can save yourself a lot of time by rough chopping all of your aromatics. For this recipe I added ginger root, Vidalia onion, and garlic cloves to my soup pot and sautéed them until they were aromatic. At this point I added my fresh chopped rosemary and thyme.

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As this cooks hopefully your squash has cooled enough to be handled. You can either peel of the skin for the squash or use a spoon to scoop out the flesh. Make sure to inspect your pieces, you don’t want any skin still attached to it when it goes in the pot! Once all the squash is in you can add your broth and use your immersion blender to get everything all smooth! Alternatively if you don’t have an immersion blender you can take the squash pieces and dump your sauteed aromatics into a traditional blender with your broth and blend until smooth. At this point I stir in my cream of choice (coconut milk) and get ready to enjoy!

Top with a crunchy topping of your choice, my personal favorite this year is the pumpkin spice pepitas from Trader Joes! Enjoy!

• Ingredients
  • 2 medium butternut squash
  • 1 large (or 2 medium Vadalia onions)
  • Ginger Root, peeled ~50 grams
  • 3 large garlic cloves
  • Fresh rosemary
  • Fresh Thyme
  • 4 cups of Vegetable broth (if using low sodium add 1 Tbsp of salt or salt to taste)
  • 1 can of coconut milk
  • Crunchy topping of choice!

• Instructions
  • Take both butternut squash and cut in half the long way (“hot dog” style). Coat lightly with olive oil and place skin side down on a baking tray and place into a pre-heated oven at 430 degrees Fahrenheit and cook for 35 minutes or until tender all the way through.
  • Remove squash from the oven and place on a cooling rack until cool enough to handle with your hands.
  • While the squash is cooling, rough chop your peeled ginger root, Vidalia onion, and garlic cloves.
  • In a stoup pot, heat oil over medium heat and add the chopped ingredients to the pot. Cook until onions are translucent and garlic/ginger are aromatic.
  • Add 1 Tbsp of fresh thyme and 1 tsp of finely chopped fresh rosemary and stir to coat the vegetables.
  • Remove squash skin carefully and add the flesh only to the soup pot followed by the 4 cups of vegetable broth.
  • Use an immersion blender (or the traditional blender alternative described above) to blend until smooth and no chunks are left.
  • Open the can of coconut milk and stir in until well incorporated into the soup.
  • Continue to simmer for 1 hour or enjoy immediately! This recipe makes several servings so if you want to keep leftovers you can package the remaining portions and pop them into the freezer for later!