The original recipe calls for a cup of parmesan, but I find I can get away with using much less — the sauce is super flavorful without it or with a handful tossed in just before serving. Butternut squash is known for producing the silkiest, smoothest soups, so it’s no surprise it makes a creamy (cream-less!) sauce for dressing pasta, too. When I make this for my children, I use butter and a little parmesan on top. It tastes like mac n’ cheese but tastier. They gobble it up. When I make it for my friends with various allergies and dietary preferences, I use olive oil and pass parmesan or cashew parmesan (nutritional yeast pulsed with cashews, sea salt, and spices) on the side to keep it dairy-free and vegan. Kids and adults alike adore this one! You can also use the sauce to make a baked penne — see this recipe: Baked Penne with Butternut Squash-Sage Sauce What’s more? It’s fast. Featured in the “10-minute mains” page of Gourmet, it has nearly lived up to its promise: 10 minutes is a bit of a stretch, but with a little finesse — puréeing the squash and onions in the food processor — the sauce can come together in just under 20 minutes. And if you’re good at multi-tasking and set a pot of water onto simmer while your sauce cooks, your dinner can be done, start to finish, in that same time frame. The rub with this method? You have to wash the food processor. I use the method outlined below, which takes just a wee longer, but which leaves me with fewer dishes. This is an especially good one to make when the butternut squash and bundles of sage start arriving at the market or in the farmshare or CSA. It’s a perfect fall pasta dish, at once hearty, comforting, healthy, and light. PS: Slow-Cooker Butternut Squash and Apple Soup PPS: Butternut Squash and Cider Soup with Herbed Flatbread 5 from 14 reviews This recipe appeared in the “10-minute mains” section of Gourmet and thus calls for processing the raw squash and onion in a food processor. If you truly want to get this down to the 10-minute range, follow the instructions here. Otherwise, the method described below takes just a wee longer, and if you have an emersion blender, your clean-up will be super fast, too. To turn this into a soup, thin with a little chicken or vegetable stock, water, or coconut milk until it’s the consistency you like. The original recipe calls for adding a cup of parmesan, which I never have done, because it tastes so deliciously creamy on its own. To make it vegan, use olive oil in place of butter, and sprinkle it with cashew parmesan — this stuff is so good.
