Butternut Squash Soup. It’s delicious, it’s rich, it’s autumnal and it will not distract you from how terrible the world is — sorry everyone.

As always, if you dig this recipe, tag me at @draggedthroughthegarden on instagram and you can show me how to successfully cut a squash in half.

Butternut Squash Soup. I suppose I can add the word “vegan.”

VEGAN BUTTERNUT SQUASH SOUP

prep time: 30 minutes
cook time: 2.5 hours

I’m in my bag but I’m his too so every time you see me I got some new soup.

This recipe requires you to roast up some vegetables, add broth, simmer, puree, strain and serve.

To start, the star of the show: butternut squash…and other vegetables too.

What you’ll need:

butternut squash
yellow onions
garlic
carrots
olive oil
salt
pepper
brown sugar

Very carefully, cut your butternut squash in half. I would watch a video this to make sure you don’t lose a finger or something. I don’t have any affiliated links so google that shit.

As you can see by the picture above, I did a shite job of halving this thing so in the next picture, you will see that I ended up doing it in thirds.

Using a spoon, spoon out all that gunk you see in the picture up there. Discard the membrane and keep the seeds if you want. You can roast those and they are very good.

Once you have membrane-less and seedless squash, throw them on a baking sheet and give them a generous rub of olive oil. Throw some salt and pepper on there to your liking.

Wipe your cutting board off if necessary and then set your oven to 375°. While your oven heats up, you’re going to dice up two onions and five or six carrots.

Dice up your two onions into small chunks (as you will see by my picture, I diced them a little too fine) and peel all of your carrots. Dice those into chunks as well.

Now that you have some chopped carrots and onions, you are going to ignore them for a second and throw your pan of squash into the oven for 20 minutes. This will take a little longer to cook, especially if you did a shite job of cutting it like I did.

After 20 minutes pop the sheet out and add your carrots and onions. Toss a little bit of olive oil on them and move them around the pan without burning yourself on a hot sheet. Now for a little more autumnal flair, sprinkle some brown sugar on the onions and carrots. This will caramelize them a little quicker so keep an eye on them.

Throw the pan back in the oven for 20 more minutes. Afterwards, carefully pop it back out and rearrange the onions and carrots.

…or until everything is easily pierced with a fork.

After that 15 minutes is up, pop the sheet out and let everything cool down. As previously stated, you should be able to easily pierce through the squash with a fork.

While the veggies cool down, we can start the next step of soup preparation: turning all of this into soup. But first, you’re going to throw together a quick herb butter. Autumnal shit.

What you’ll need:

vegan butter
rosemary
sage
thyme

In a small pan, add a big fat knob of vegan butter and let it cook down a little bit. Don’t burn it. Once it’s a nice golden brown color, kill the heat and add a bunch of thyme, sage and rosemary. A few sprigs of each will suffice. Make it however herbaceous you would like.

I wish you could smell this mf kitchen right now.

Let your herb butter sit in the pan for a minute and when it cools, transfer it into a small bowl and set aside.

Now assuming your vegetables from the sheet pan have had enough time to cool, get out a big ol’ pot and add your carrots and onions. Using a spoon, scoop out all of the innards of the butternut squash and add that all to the pot too.

Then add your herb butter right into the mix as well.

Now we have to actually turn this into soup. You’re going to add broth and water. Lots of people use coconut milk here but we aren’t going to do that, we’re going to let all of the other components do the heavy lifting.

What you’ll need:

vegetable broth
water
salt
pepper
red pepper flakes (optional)
bay leaf

Add your 32 oz of vegetable broth into the pot. Add 32 oz of water as well. Bring the flame up gently so we can gradually work our way to a boil. Give everything a stir and leave the pot topless for now. Add some salt and pepper and some red pepper flakes if you want. Throw a bay leaf in there too, fuck it.

Bring your flame up a little higher so things start to bubble a little. Bring it up a little higher and let everything boil for a quick minute. Throw a lid on it, reduce the flame to a simmer.

Look at the pretty little caramelized bits having a swim.

Now that you have the beginnings of a soup, time for the most important step: leaving it alone.

Let the soup cook for one hour. You can cook it longer if you want, which I do recommend but an hour is fine.

Now you have to puree the soup down. Using either an immersion blender or a vitamix (in batches) — blend the soup down. Maybe ladle out that bay leaf first.

Blend the soup down to the best of your ability. It’s going to get strained so if there are small chunks, it’s all good. But more smooth = more soup.

Next, get yourself another pot and throw a strainer on top of it. Add your soup carefully through the strainer and use a wooden spoon or spatula to agitate the soup through the strainer.

If the soup is too thick, which is may in fact be, add a little bit of water to the strainer to help sieve the soup through. Once all of your soup is separated from the chunky stuff, it may have cooled down a little. Toss it back on the stovetop and bring it back up to a simmer. Not a boil.

Now you have a soup. Salt and pepper to taste. Yes you have to taste it. That’s good soup.

And the final step is making it pretty for the internet. You’re going to do one of those fancy creme swirls on the top, add some parsley and fresh cracked black pepper.

What you’ll need:

parsley
black pepper
vegan sour cream
oat milk

Rinse and dice up some parsley. In a small bowl that you can mix in, add three parts vegan sour cream to one part oat milk. Yes, sour cream. It adds a nice little twang too as well as beautiful texture. Whisk it. Whisk it like crazy. **

Add your soup to a serving bowl. Using a spoon, gently add the creme to the soup, guiding it to make it look pretty. Throw some parsley on there and crack some black pepper. You can use chives instead of parsley if you want. Now EAT!

** Fun fact: the creme took the longest to come up with. I tried coconut milk, coconut milk with apple cider vinegar, oat milk, oat creamer, oat milk whisked on its own, a blend of full fat coconut milk with oat milk — most of them ended up looking like shit. Still tasted really good but didn’t look as nice. The kitchen was a mess though. I was cleaning coconut fat out of the sink for at least 20 minutes.

A few of the combinations left me with foamy creme…well, hardly creme at all. Kinda looks like a turmeric latte or something.

In other words, don’t get discouraged and keep cooking!

Please consider sharing this recipe with your friends. Autumnal shit.