The first morning you reach for a sweater is the morning to turn the oven on. This is the soup that comes out of it: butternut squash, carrots, onion and an apple roasted until the edges go dark and sweet, then blended smooth with a little cream and a spoonful of cider vinegar.
It tastes like it simmered all afternoon. It did not. The oven does the work while you do something else, and the whole thing comes together in about an hour.
We season it with Zilch. Nada. None., our organic salt-free all-purpose blend, which means the squash and the apple stay the loudest things in the bowl and the salt decision stays at your table instead of in the jar.
Butternut is coming in across the Carolinas right now and it will keep in a cool pantry for months, so this is a good one to learn once and make all season. The recipe card below has the full method, the timings, and the notes that make the difference.
Roasted Butternut Squash Soup with Zilch. Nada. None.
Roasted butternut squash, carrots and a Carolina apple blended smooth with organic salt-free Zilch. Nada. None. One sheet pan, one pot, and a swirl of cream.
Ingredients
For the sheet pan
- 1 large butternut squash (about 3 lb), peeled, seeded and cut into 1-inch cubes
- 1 medium yellow onion, cut into large wedges
- 2 medium carrots, cut into 1-inch pieces
- 1 firm apple (Honeycrisp, Gala or Rome), peeled, cored and quartered
- 3 Tbsp olive oil, divided
- 1 Tbsp + 1 tsp Zilch. Nada. None. organic salt-free seasoning, divided
For the pot
- 4 cups low-sodium vegetable or chicken broth
- ½ cup heavy cream, or full-fat coconut milk
- 1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
To finish
- ¼ cup raw pumpkin seeds
- Kosher or flaky sea salt, to taste
- Crushed red pepper, to taste (optional)
Instructions
- Heat the oven to 425°F with a rack in the center position, and line a large rimmed sheet pan with parchment.
- Pile the squash cubes, onion wedges, carrots and apple quarters onto the pan. Drizzle with 2 Tbsp of the olive oil, sprinkle 1 Tbsp of the Zilch. Nada. None. over everything, and toss with your hands until every piece is coated.
- Spread it all into a single layer with room between the pieces. A crowded pan steams instead of roasting, and steaming is how you end up with a soup that tastes like boiled squash.
- Roast 35 to 40 minutes, tossing once at the halfway mark, until the squash gives easily to a fork and the edges are browned and blistered in spots. Those dark edges are the whole point. Do not pull the pan early.
- While the vegetables roast, toast the pumpkin seeds. Warm the last 1 Tbsp olive oil in a small skillet over medium heat, add the seeds and the remaining 1 tsp Zilch. Nada. None., and stir 3 to 4 minutes until they puff and smell nutty. Slide them onto a plate so they stop cooking.
- Scrape the roasted vegetables and every brown bit on the parchment into a large pot. Pour in the broth, bring it to a simmer over medium heat, and let it bubble gently for 10 minutes.
- Blend until completely smooth. An immersion blender right in the pot is easiest. With a countertop blender, fill it no more than halfway per batch and vent the lid, because hot soup expands and will lift the lid off if you let it.
- Stir in the cream and the apple cider vinegar and warm through over low heat for 2 minutes. If it is thicker than you like, thin it with broth a splash at a time.
- Taste, add salt only if it wants it, and ladle into bowls. Finish with the toasted pumpkin seeds and a pinch of crushed red pepper for anyone who wants heat.
Roast it, do not boil it
This is the difference between a good squash soup and a dull one. Dry oven heat caramelizes the sugars in the squash, the onion and the apple, and that is flavor you cannot build by simmering raw cubes in broth for an hour. Every minute the pan spends in the oven is paying you back.
The cider vinegar at the end is doing real work
Squash soup without acid tastes flat and one-note, and most cooks reach for the salt cellar to fix it. A tablespoon of apple cider vinegar fixes it better and does not bury the squash. Stir it in off the boil so it stays bright.
Peeling a butternut without a fight
Cut the neck off the bulb first so you have two flat, stable pieces, then stand each one up and run a sharp Y-peeler down the sides. Scoop the seeds out of the bulb with a spoon. If the squash is stubborn, microwave it whole for two minutes and the skin gives up.
Go easy on the salt
Zilch. Nada. None. is our organic salt-free blend, which puts the salt decision back in your hands instead of the jar. Taste the pot before you reach for the salt cellar. Roasted squash concentrates as it cooks and the broth brings its own, so a pinch of flaky salt at the table is usually all it wants.
What is good right now
This is a Carolina pot in the first week of October. Butternut squash is coming in now and will hold in a cool pantry for months, the Henderson County apple crop is at its peak, and carrots, onions and sage are all still going strong. Tuck a few sage leaves onto the sheet pan if you have them.
Make it ahead, and feed a crowd
The soup reheats better than almost anything else you will make this month, and the flavor is better on day two. Roast the vegetables the night before and hold them covered in the fridge, and dinner is fifteen minutes away. It doubles in a stockpot without any changes, though you will want two sheet pans so nothing crowds.
Save the seeds
The seeds you scooped out of the squash toast up the same way the pumpkin seeds do. There is a whole method in our Roasted Pumpkin Seeds, and if you are cooking your way through the fall market, the Harvest Sheet Pan Chicken with Sweet Potatoes and Apples uses the same oven and the same apples.