How to Roast Winter Squash (and Squash Seeds)

I don’t know about you, but I really crave starchy carbs when it’s cold outside.

And one of the tastiest starchy vegetables are the winter squashes, which are cheap, readily available, and come in countless varieties.

These veggies are remarkably simple to prepare, and are perfect for weekday dinners when you don’t have a lot of time or energy to spare.

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A Squash Primer

Winter squash can be easily found all fall and winter. It is pretty cheap, especially considering that it is an energy-dense starch and is one of the few veggies that can really fill you up.

Comfort food, indeed!

Winter squash comes in countless varieties, the most common of which are acorn, butternut, and spaghetti squash. I suggest you try them all. You’re bound to find one you love. (My personal favorite is delicata squash.)

Squash can keep fresh on the countertop for weeks, so if you forget to use it right away you should be fine.

While it is possible to boil or steam squash, you will first need to peel the thick and irregularly-shaped skin and then cube it. This is a huge pain in the ass, and I suggest you stick to just roasting halved squashes as side dishes for your go-to meals instead.

The Ingredients and Equipment

As always, the ingredients are minimal (and can mostly be found in your minimalist pantry) and the equipment uses only what you have in your basic kitchen setup.

The only mildly-fancy addition is the optional use of aluminum foil (or a baking dish) to put under the squash. But if you are truly badass, you can forego these all together.

Just go commando and put the squash directly on the oven rack and you shouldn’t have any problems with dripping. Hey-ooooooo! Here’s what you’ll need:

• Winter squash (any variety will do)
• Butter
• Salt and pepper
• Knife and cutting board
• Aluminum foil, or oven-safe baking dish (optional)

The Recipe

Time: 10 minutes (plus one hour cooking time)

First, preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

Cut the squash in half lengthwise. Be careful here! Even with a super-sharp knife, winter squash is incredibly hard to cut through. Try to stabilize the vegetable by holding the heel of your hand on the cutting board, and ferchrissakes keep your fingers curled back and far away from the blade! Scoop the seeds and strings out of the squash. You can just throw them away, or you can take an additional 15 minutes and make roasted squash seeds (see below). Add a tablespoon of butter to each scooped-out half of squash, then cover the whole thing in salt and pepper. Put the squash in an oven-proof baking dish, on a piece of aluminum foil, or (like I do), just put the halves directly on the oven rack for 45–60 minutes. You have a lot of leeway with cooking time for squash, but you can tell if it is done if you can insert and remove a knife into the vegetable easily, with very little resistance.

The Variations

A lot of people like to add a little sweetener to their squash before cooking. I’d suggest maple syrup or molasses for a beefier taste.

You can also “stuff” your squash by adding ingredients to the scooped out part. You can go basic (walnuts) or fancy (chorizo), as long as you add something that will cook (but not overcook) in about 45 minutes or so. The options are limitless, so just experiment if you want to go this route.

Spaghetti squash resembles, well, spaghetti when you scoop it out with a fork after cooking. You can add some Italian sauce of your choice and make a pasta-free “pasta!”

Roasted Squash Seeds

Time: 20 minutes (plus 30 minutes cooking time)

If you are feeling particularly ambitious, you can roast the squash seeds as well. It’s not much extra work (the hardest part is separating the seeds from the stringy mess), but it results in getting essentially free food from something you would have otherwise thrown away. Hooray!

Here’s what you’ll need to make this happen:

• The seed/string mixture you scooped out of the squash
• Olive oil
• Salt
• A cast-iron skillet (or other oven-safe dish) and spatula

First, preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). If you are roasting squash as well, you’ve already got this step covered!

Next, separate the seeds from the strings and add them to the skillet. This can be a minor pain but shouldn’t take much longer than 10 minutes. Catch up on episodes of Louie while you do this.

Add some olive oil and some salt to the seeds. Mix them around and spread them out evenly on the pan. Yeah, I know, “some” isn’t a great measurement, but you’ve got some leeway here, and it depends on how many seeds you are starting with anyways.

Put it in the oven and roast for about 30 minutes. Stir every 5 minutes or so with the spatula. You want the seeds to darken but not burn.

For variety, you can add different spices along with the salt and olive oil. I like to use cayenne pepper to give it a little extra heat.

The Wondrous Squash

Winter squash is a great addition to your collection of go-to meals during the colder months.

As a side dish to fried or grilled meat, roast squash is tasty and easy to prepare on a weekday night. And since there’s countless varieties readily available, you’ll never get sick of it.

So get yourself to a supermarket and get yourself one of these wondrous squashes already!