Our Favorite Winter Squash Recipes, Featuring Acorn, Butternut, Delicata, and More (2024)

18 Acorn Squash Recipes for Fall Dinners and Holiday Feasts

Butternut Squash Soup With Coconut Milk and Ginger

Vegan soup for the win! This creamy-tasting but dairy-free dish starts with roasted butternut squash, adds fresh ginger for a little heat and a swirl of coconut milk for creaminess. Garnish with toasted squash seeds for crunch.

Roasted Delicata Squash With Garden Herbs

Easy, healthy, and delicious, there's a lot to like about this simple side dish. Delicata squash is sliced into rings and roasted; the rings roast faster than a half squash so this side is on the table in just 30 minutes.

Acorn Squash With Mixed-Grain Stuffing

For a vegan entree or a hearty side for Thanksgiving or any night of the week, serve these acorn squash halves. They're stuffed with a delicious mix of wheatberries and millet plus mushrooms, spices, and golden raisins, with a bright pomegranate relish served on the side.

Roasted Sausages with Cabbage and Squash

You've probably heard of bangers and mash, but have you tried bangers and squash? Simply arrange quick-cooking sausages with kabocha squash and cabbage on a sheet pan, then roast and toss with a quick vinaigrette.

Brown-Sugar Butternut-Squash Pie

Roasted squash replaces the usual pumpkin in this seasonal custard pie, and a fishtail-braided crust lines the gorgeous outer edge. The cutouts on top are baked separately and scattered across the pie after baking. It takes a bit more time to put together, but it's sure to be the most stunning—and memorable—dessert on any autumn table.

Kabocha-Cauliflower Mash

One of squash's best attributes is its creaminess once it's cooked. Here, it's paired with cauliflower in a flavorful, non-dairy mash that's perfect alongside any main course on the holiday table or combined with a plateful of other sides to make a satisfying meal.

Caribbean Fish and Pumpkin Stew

Calabaza squash is such a staple of Caribbean cooking that it's also known as West Indian pumpkin. We love how it lends a deeply rich, creamy character to this warming, nicely spiced fish stew.

Quick Turkey Bolognese With Spaghetti Squash

Spaghetti squash lives up to its name in this 35-minute dinner recipe. It reduces the carbs and pairs wonderfully with the ground turkey sauce for a comforting but healthy meal.

Roasted Squash and Parsnip Soup

Honeynut is a relatively recent cultivar in the winter squash family, bred precisely for its concentration of flavor. It looks like a diminutive butternut. Note that the larger squash will work well as a substitute if you can't find honeynut for this soup, which has a complex flavor and crisp, crunchy garnishes at the finish.

Orecchiette With Butternut Squash and Sage

Deliciously different, this easy weeknight pasta comes together in 40 minutes and is the perfect balance of cubes of sweet butternut squash, creamy ricotta, and fragrant fresh sage. Poppyseeds make a crunchy garnish.

Chopped Winter Salad

Make the most of an abundance of autumn produce with a beautifully composed chopped salad. This one features roasted squash and mushrooms atop a bed of wintry bitter greens. It serves eight as a side dish or four for dinner. Leave off the feta to make it vegan-friendly.

Honeynut Squash, Leek, and Brie Gratin

Sliced winter squash, leeks, broken lasagna noodles, chopped brie, and a touch of cream add up to a rich, creamy, over-the-top comfort food casserole. Add a green salad, and dinner is done.

Roasted Squash with Cherry Tomatoes and Eggs

To make this playful twist on hearty breakfast hash, split winter squashes (acorn or butternut) right down the middle and scoop out the seeds to make edible "bowls" for tomatoes and eggs.

Sourdough Stuffing with Apples, Acorn Squash, and Hazelnuts

In this mash-up (pun intended) of beloved Thanksgiving sides, we combined the best of turkey dressing/stuffings (namely, toasted cubes of crusty bread) with a few other favorite Turkey Day ingredients, including acorn squash, apples, celery, and roasted nuts.

Simple Roasted Spaghetti Squash

Spaghetti squash is a culinary chameleon. Though it looks a lot like other squash when it's raw, it takes on a new character once cooked. Roasted whole and then split down the middle, the flesh is easily shredded into long strands. Seasoned with little more than salt, pepper, and either butter or oil, it makes a tasty side, but what really makes this a vegetable worth getting to know is its versatility. Try it in any number of other dishes.

Roasted Kabocha Squash with Tahini and Herb Salad

It doesn't take much to serve a sensationally flavorful lunch when featuring winter squash. This salad keeps things super simple, with roasted wedges of squash arranged over a bed of yogurt-tahini dressing and then scattered with fresh tender herbs.

Squash Lasagna with Spinach

With a rich béchamel sauce, roasted squash wedges, and three types of cheese (ricotta, Parmesan, and Gruyère), this would make a showstopper of a main course at a meatless Thanksgiving feast.

Kabocha Squash Soup

Because winter squash famously takes well to flavor of all kinds, you can prepare it with seasonings that are as sweet and mild or hot and spicy as you like. Here, kabocha gets a nice kick from toasted dried chiles and ground spices (cinnamon and cumin). A sour cream garnish helps balance some of the heat; add just a drizzle or a few big dollops, depending on your preference.

Squash and Rajas Tostadas

Rajas means "strips" in Spanish; here, it refers to sliced poblano chiles cut into thin strips and cooked with thinly sliced onion and cubed winter squash to create a fantastic topping for tostadas. Quick pickled radishes bring all the flavors together beautifully.

Heirloom-Squash and Pumpkin Pie

You can prepare this pie with an all-pumpkin or all-squash filling, but for the best depth of flavor, we suggest using a combination of the two. And don't skimp on the whipped cream on top.