Roasted Butternut Squash {with Garlic and Herbs} - Cooking Classy (2024)

FAQs

How do you roast butternut squash Jamie Oliver? ›

Place the squash in one layer in a roasting tray and season lightly with salt and pepper. Sprinkle over the seeds, cover tightly with tin foil and bake for 30 minutes, or until the skin of the squash is soft, then remove the foil and cook for another 10 minutes until the squash is golden and crisp.

Learn how to roast butternut squash the EASY WAY without any prep work. No pre-peeling, chopping or deseeding (yes really!). Just whole-roast it in the oven until soft and tender.

Steaming, boiling, microwaving, and pressure cooking are quick moist-heat ways to soften the flesh of this winter squash. These methods don't add much flavor, but they are great for soups and purees. Personally, roasting tastes the best.

It's important to set your heat at 425°F - yes, that high! If your oven is set at a temperature that is too low, you'll end up with uncooked or mushy roasted squash.

Cut squash in half lengthwise: slice about ½ inch off the top and bottom to make flat sides; then, stand the squash up and carefully cut down the center to make two roughly even halves. Rub halves all over with oil then season with salt. Place on a parchment-lined sheet pan or baking dish, cut side down.

“You can eat the skin, so there's no need to peel it,” Oliver's website says. “Simply halve it, scoop out the seeds and chop it into chunks, then roast it and add it to a warm winter salad or throw it into curries, stews or soups. You can also roast the seeds and eat them as a snack or sprinkled over a finished dish.”

Food Safety and Storage

Scrub winter squash with a vegetable brush under cool running water before cooking or cutting.

If there are any green spots, it's definitely not ready to cook. The skin should be hard, according to the Farmer's Almanac, not at all glossy, and en even color. You can also tell if a butternut squash, or any other winter squash, is ready to cook by pressing your fingernail through the flesh.

Cook at 400 degrees — hot — until the squash releases its juices and they are bubbly and brown around the edges. This is a sign that the sugars in the squash have caramelized and its flavor concentrated.

Butternut squash, cut into 1-inch cubes, should be perfectly roasted after about 25 to 35 minutes in an oven heated to 400 degrees F. When it's done, the squash should be lightly browned and easily pierced with a fork.

Why is my roasted butternut squash watery? ›

The key to avoiding watery butternut squash is to roast it rather than steam it. Steaming butternut squash causes the vegetable to absorb more water and doesn't impart much flavor. Roasting the squash prevents this and caramelizes the vegetable's natural sugars, adding another layer of flavor to your dish.

Mushy veggies are also often the result of overcooking. When the interior is loaded with moisture, you have to cook it for much longer to evaporate all of the water and avoid the interior having the unappealing, spongy, raw texture that eggplant and zucchini are notorious for.

A quick Google search reveals that this is a common reaction many people have to handling peeled butternut (and acorn) squash. Butternut squash contains a sticky, sap-like substance that is released when the fruit (squash is technically a fruit) is cut.