This roasted butternut squash recipe features a dynamite combination of fall flavours! This fall squash from Top Tomato Farm is roasted and cut like a hasselback potato to make sure that the delicious sage and maple brown butter soaks into every nook and cranny of this squash.
The perfect combination of sweet and savoury, this recipe features fall produce and spices and would make the perfect side dish for Thanksgiving!
Roasted Butternut Squash
When roasted, butternut squash has a beautiful soft texture and slightly sweet flavour. This recipe is topped with crispy sage leaves and and chopped walnuts to add texture and an extra punch of flavour.
About Our Farmers
Top Tomato Farm
The de Filippis family has been farming for over 55 years. They began with a focus on cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower but have experimented with many varieties in the years since!
Top Tomato now has one of the widest ranges of products available of the farms we work with and are the farmers responsible for the gorgeous, and not to mention hefty, butternut squash used in this recipe!
Emerald Grasslands
Emerald Grassland's grass-fed, organic butter is the product of a special partnership between Can-Dairy and St. Brigid's Dairy Farm.
St. Brigids is an innovative Canadian dairy implementing regenerative organic land management and animal welfare practices. This herd graze on grass and healthy pastures year found which gives this butter it's vibrant yellow hue and flavour.
Barrel churned to 84% fat content, it is the perfect butter for the base of our maple and sage brown butter that used to baste the butternut squash in this recipe!
Ennis Maple
Ennis Maple's 100% Pure Maple Syrup has a gorgeous amber colour, a robust, full-bodied flavour making it the perfect maple syrup to flavour our maple and sage brown butter in this recipe.
Ennis Maple Products produces great tasting, pure Ontario maple syrup from the rocky hills of Tay Valley Township. They are still all wood-fired, relying on the old fashioned way to make their delicious maple products!
Niagara Vinegar
Niagara Vinegar is based in St. Catharines and is part of Hernder Estate Wines and use a very straight forward fermentation process to create their vinegars!
Their apple cider vinegar is used in the maple and sage brown butter used to baste the squash in this recipe!
The Olive Farm
That's right, Canadian grown olive oil! From the innovative Olive Farm located on Vancouver Island, George and Sheri Braun produce olive oil in the fertile soil of Fulford Valley on Salt Spring Island.
Ingredients
For the Roasted Squash
- 1 x large butternut squash from Top Tomato Farm
- 2 tbsp Olive Farms olive oil
- 1 tsp salt & pepper to taste + ⅛ tsp paprika (for seasoning the squash)
For the Maple & Sage Brown Butter
- ¼ cup Emerald Grasslands salted butter
- 2 tbsp pure Ennis Maple maple syrup
- 1 tbsp Niagara Vinegars apple cider vinegar
- 2 tsp fresh sage, chiffonade
- 1 tsp fresh rosemary, finely chopped
- ¼ cup chopped walnuts
Method
The first thing you're going to do is prepare your butternut squash for roasting! Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Using a vegetable peeler, remove the skin and white flesh from the butternut squash.
Once you've peeled the entire squash, carefully cut the butternut squash in half vertically.
Next, scoop out the seeds and pulp from the inside of the butternut squash.
Once your squash is prepped, lay it on a parchment paper lined baking sheet and brush with olive oil and season with salt, pepper and paprika.
Roast your butternut squash in the oven for 15-20 minutes. After 15 minutes, check the done-ness of your squash. The squash should still be firm but soft enough that you can poke pierce it with a fork without applying too much pressure.
You don't want to cook your squash fully, you just want to roast it enough that it makes it easy to cut the hasselback cuts into the squash.
Remove from the oven and let the squash cool on the pan for 5 to 10 minutes or until it's cool enough to handle with your hands. If you're working with a large squash (this one was 5.4lbs) and will be serving multiple people, you can cut your squash into smaller portions by slicing each squash half into 4 inch chunks.
If you are working with a smaller butternut squash, you can leave the halves in tact and slice the hasselback cuts into each half.
To slice your hasselback cuts, carefully slice into the squash in thin slices, cutting as deep as you can without slicing all the way through the squash. You do not want the squash to fall apart so you need to cut until you are about a half inch from the bottom of the squash.
Make Your Maple & Sage Brown Butter
Put all the ingredients for the maple and sage brown butter in a medium saucepan on medium-high heat and cook for 5-10 minutes stirring frequently to make sure the butter doesn't burn.
You will know when the brown butter is ready when you see the milk solids start to brown in the pot and you can smell a slightly nutty aroma from the butter.
Glaze the Roasted Hasselback Squash & Continue to Roast
Once the brown butter is done, using a pastry brush, glaze the squash pieces with the brown butter and put them back in the oven to cook for another 20 minutes until the tops of the squash have browned.
Remove from the oven and drizzle with the remaining brown butter and top with chiffonade fresh sage and chopped walnuts. Serve immediately!
