Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

Cozy and filling, roasted butternut squash soup will warm you from the inside out. Let your oven do the work: it’s tailor-made to coax all the best flavors from butternut, carrots, onions, sage, and thyme.

Serve this with a crusty loaf of Dutch oven bread, or add a simple wild rice winter salad. Hosting a crowd? Pair with these ravioli or this elevated sage chicken.

Ladies and gentlemen, soup season is the best season. When the temperatures dip, there’s nothing like a piping hot bowl or mug to make you feel cozy.

Soup is also a great way to keep your veggie intake up all winter long. Even healthy, vegetable-forward soups can be incredibly creamy, smooth, and delicious, making them the perfect guilt-free comfort food.

Why we love this soup

This recipe stands out from the pack because roasting brings out amazing complex flavors in butternut squash, with browned and caramelized bits that add depth. Incorporating other veggies adds more flavor and nutrition. Sage and thyme add the perfect herbal note – and, bonus, make your house smell like Thanksgiving.

Plus, let’s look at some of the nutritional perks. This soup is:

• packed with Vitamin A, thanks to all that butternut plus a few carrots.
• high in antioxidants, fiber, potassium, and magnesium.
• naturally dairy-free, and vegan if you use appropriate broth.
• free of added sugars – the sweetness is all natural, enhanced through the roasting process.

How to make it

This butternut squash soup is simple to make, thanks to the simplicity of roasting. It works for broccolini, and it works here. You’ll need some time to let the oven work its magic, so this is a great recipe to prep over the weekend. Fortunately, once everything is chopped, it’s very hands-off.

First, peel and cube the squash. (Confession: I often buy it pre-cubed to save time!) Pile the cut pieces on a large sheet pan together with chopped carrots, onion, celery, herbs, and seasonings.

Pop into the oven on high heat until everything is wrinkly and it’s easy to pierce the veggies with a fork.

Now you just need to combine those luscious roasted veggies with a good amount of broth and blend it all up.

You can see here that I’m using an immersion blender, which is easy because it means you can combine and blend everything in one step and one pot.

You can also use a standard countertop blender. On the downside, this will dirty an extra appliance. (The immersion blender is so easy to pop in the dishwasher that I don’t count it as something I have to wash.)

On the plus side, a high-quality countertop blender, such as a Vitamix or Blendtec, will yield the smoothest possible soup. So if perfectly velvety soup is your goal, transfer and blend away!

Itchy hands?

The first time I made this soup, a very strange thing happened. While handling the squash, I noticed that my hands looked odd. In fact, there was a small red-orange patch, and more worrisome, it seemed to be growing.

A few minutes later, my fingers and the palm touching the squash began to feel excruciatingly dry, tingly, and itchy. Washing my hands did nothing.

Turns out, butternut squash dermatitis is a thing.

On the slim chance this helps someone, some day: if this is you, don’t panic. The symptoms will fade on their own. I found that regular lotion didn’t help, but supposedly using an anti-itch cream can help them fade faster. What did help was to literally peel the red-orange, itchy splotches off of my hands using scotch tape. Cut small strips of tape, press the sticky side over the affected areas, and peel it back. A small layer of the red-orange compound will stick to it!

Now if I need to cut squash, I use gloves. Or, as noted above, many stores carry it pre-peeled and cubed, which is really nice!

We don’t need any itchy hands standing between us and and a soup this good.

Complete the meal

Serve this with your favorite bread – bonus points if it’s this life-changing no-knead Dutch oven loaf. The soup also goes well with a salad or heartier main for a larger dinner or gathering. A few favorite pairings:

• Pumpkin Ravioli with Browned Butter, Sage, and Toasted Walnuts
• Brown Butter Sage Chicken Skillet
• Apple Cabbage Slaw with Brown Sugar Cider Vinaigrette

If you try this roasted butternut squash soup or any other recipe on Nourish and Fete, please rate the recipe and leave a comment below! We love hearing from you, and other readers will benefit from your experience!

More Delicious Soup Recipes

• Instant Pot Wild Rice Soup (reader favorite!)
• Instant Pot Broccoli Cheddar Soup (another lightened-up option)
• Creamy Roasted Tomato Basil Soup
• Creamy Carrot Red Pepper Soup
• White Bean Tortellini Soup (start to finish in 20 minutes!)
• Hearty Tortellini Chicken Noodle Soup