You never peel the squash

This is the soup I make the week the weather finally turns. It takes almost no work, it feeds a crowd, and it is the easiest thing to serve first when people are coming over.

The part worth knowing before you start is that you never peel the squash. Not once.

Why you do not peel it

Peeling and cubing a raw butternut squash is the reason most people never make this soup twice. The skin is hard, the flesh is dense, and you spend twenty minutes fighting it with a vegetable peeler before you have cooked anything.

You do not have to do any of that. Cut the squash in half the long way, scrape the seeds out with a spoon, and roast it face down. When it comes out, the flesh lifts away from the skin with a spoon in about thirty seconds.

Roasting it this way also tastes better than boiling cubes, because the cut side caramelizes against the hot pan and that sweetness ends up in the soup.

Ingredients

• 1 large butternut squash, about 3 pounds, halved and seeded
• Olive oil
• 1/2 cup chopped shallot
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 to 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 teaspoon maple syrup
• 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg, optional
• Black pepper
• 3 to 4 cups vegetable broth

How to make it

1. Heat the oven to 425F. Halve the squash the long way, scrape out the seeds, rub the cut sides with olive oil and lay them face down on a lined sheet pan. Roast 40 to 50 minutes, until a knife goes into the thickest part with no resistance.
2. While it roasts, warm a little olive oil in a pan and cook the shallot with the salt for 3 to 4 minutes, until soft. Add the garlic for one more minute, then the butter, and let it melt into the shallots.
3. Scoop the roasted squash straight out of the skins into a large bowl. Add the shallot and butter mixture, the maple syrup, the nutmeg if you are using it, and a few grinds of black pepper.
4. Pour in 3 cups of broth and blend with an immersion blender right in the bowl until silky. Add the last cup if you want it thinner.
5. Taste, adjust the salt, and warm it through until it is steaming.
6. Serve with cracked black pepper on top.

Two notes

I skipped the nutmeg. It is optional in the recipe and I liked it better without, because the maple is already doing the warm sweet work and nutmeg on top of it started to taste like dessert.

And use an immersion blender if you have one. It goes straight down into the bowl and the whole thing takes about a minute. A countertop blender means ladling hot soup into a jar in batches, blending, pouring it back, and washing two more things at the end of it.

Serving it to people

This is a good first course, and that is mostly how I use it. Small bowls or even mugs, set out before anyone sits down at the table. It is warm, it is one color, and it makes the rest of the meal look considered without you having done anything extra.

If you want it to look like more than orange in a bowl, the easiest additions are a swirl of cream dragged through with the tip of a spoon, toasted pumpkin seeds, a little olive oil, and thyme. Any one of those is enough. All four is too many.

Make it ahead

This is better on day two. Make it the day before, keep it in the fridge, and warm it slowly on the stove. It thickens overnight, so have a little extra broth on hand to loosen it.

It also freezes well, which is worth knowing in October.

What I used

• Olive oil (gifted)
• Trivet
• White mixing bowls
• Immersion blender, similar to mine

Gifted items are marked, and some of these are affiliate links.