Squash & Gourds
1180 recipes found
Butternut Squash Congee With Chile Oil
Congee comes in many textures and flavors, under a number of different names, and is eaten widely across East, South East and South Asia. This particular version of congee is not traditional to any region or cuisine, but is a seasonal interpretation, incorporating butternut squash for a warming, naturally sweet, earthy glow. The chile oil delivers a lively counter to the mellow nature of this congee, delivering both heat and savoriness. Using leftover rice gives you a hearty congee in just about 30 minutes, but make sure you give it a good stir at the end to further break up the rice and create a creamy finish. Butternut can be an unwieldy vegetable and many find it hard to handle, so try cutting it into smaller pieces before slicing the skin off with a sharp knife or peeler. Quicker still, opt for pre-cut cubes of butternut which can often be found at the supermarket.
Pumpkin Cookies
More like portable cakes, these spiced pumpkin cookies are delightfully tender and moist, simple, and absolutely divine with a cup of coffee. Eat them just as they are, or give them a dusting of powdered sugar or more ground cinnamon, a drizzle of a confectioners’ sugar glaze, or maybe a swipe of cream-cheese frosting. These little guys could even work as the top and bottom of the perfect pumpkin whoopie pie. Because these cookies are so moist, it’s best to store them layered between parchment or wax paper in an airtight container at room temperature. You could also freeze them and thaw before serving.
Pumpkin Layer Cake With Caramel Buttercream
Warmly spiced pumpkin cake and toasty caramel are a natural pair in this fall showstopper. The cake is light and fluffy with just enough spice to highlight the pumpkin flavor, while a generous pour of caramel sauce between the layers adds richness. (Store-bought caramel sauce will also work, but expect a slightly sweeter result.) For an impressive presentation, top the frosted cake with a bit more caramel sauce, and let it trail down the sides. It’s just the thing for a fall birthday treat or the Thanksgiving table.
Roast Pumpkin, Radicchio And Feta Salad
The sweetness of the oven-blasted pumpkin, together with the salty intensity of the feta, the bitterness of the radicchio and the sour, subtle heat of the red onion, is a model of harmonious simplicity.
Butternut Squash and Green Curry Soup
This creamy, vibrant soup is a Thai-inspired version of the puréed squash soup you know and love. The green curry paste, which is relatively easy to find in the international aisle of the grocery store, along with coconut milk and fish sauce, perfectly complements the butternut squash's sweetness. But it's the topping — a spin on miang kham, a snack in Thailand and Laos full of peanuts, coconut and chiles — that's the real standout.
Butternut Squash Pasta With Brown-Butter Bread Crumbs
A fun tip for easy squash pasta: Boil cubed squash with your pasta. Not only does it save time and effort, but also the salted pasta water helps thoroughly season the squash. The pasta and squash are then drained together and returned to the pot, where some of the tender squash breaks down and helps create a rich, creamy sauce without the addition of heavy cream. A fragrant brown butter that’s been infused with garlic and sage is used two ways in this meal: It serves as the base for the sauce, and it flavors the crispy bread crumb topping.
Pumpkin Fudge Torte
With a texture that falls somewhere between pudding and ganache, this bittersweet torte is silky smooth and very rich. The whipped cream topping, run through with spiced pumpkin purée, is a fluffy contrast to the torte’s denseness. You can make the torte two days ahead. Store it, well wrapped, in the refrigerator, then let it come to room temperature before serving.
Greek Salad
While diner-style Greek salads made with chopped romaine, crumbled feta and often grilled chicken have become ubiquitous in American restaurants, a traditional Greek salad, or horiatiki salata, is a simpler affair. An assembled salad of large-diced vegetables with Kalamata olives and sometimes capers, this salad has no greens at all, and the feta is served sliced on top of the salad rather than crumbled and tossed into it. A traditional Greek salad dressing usually consists of olive oil and red wine vinegar; this recipe adds garlic and oregano. To make the salad into a satisfying vegetarian main course, throw in a can of drained and rinsed chickpeas.
Tzatziki Potato Salad
Tzatziki, the classic Greek combination of garlic, yogurt and cucumber, is incredibly versatile and often served with grilled meat, gyros, roasted vegetables or simply flatbread. Here, it is the sauce for a fresh potato salad. Opt for a waxy potato, such as red, new or fingerlings, as these varieties contain the least starch and will retain their shape when boiled. (All-purpose Yukon Golds work, too.) The potatoes are left unpeeled for texture, but peel them if you prefer, and make sure they are roughly the same size to ensure even cooking. The tzatziki benefits from resting for at least 10 to 15 minutes before being added to the potatoes, so prepare it before you start the potatoes, or better yet, make it the night before and let it hang out in the fridge so the flavors can get to know one another. A little honey lends a floral, subtle sweetness, but omit it if you want this dish to be purely savory.
Melon, Cucumber and Cherry Tomato Salad
This is an extremely simple, yet spectacularly refreshing salad, especially when made from height-of-the-season summer produce. Ripe melon mirrors the tomatoes’ sweetness. Cucumber, a relative of melon, gives both crunch and flavor. A handful of basil and mint leaves, and a squeeze of fresh lime juice added just before serving, bring it all together.
Grilled Mushroom Skewers in Red Chile Paste
Fire up the grill and let the aromas of vegetables and chile-marinated mushrooms charred over an open flame permeate the neighborhood. This simple recipe is fun to assemble, and a crowd pleaser, making it ideal for cookouts. Meaty king oyster mushrooms are smothered in a guajillo chile sauce that includes earthy achiote, which stains the mushrooms red. Liquid aminos or soy sauce add saltiness and umami, and maple syrup brings a touch of sweetness. If you don’t have the vegetables below on hand, you can easily swap them out for others that will cook in the same time frame. Serve this as a main dish with your favorite cooked grains or salad, or as a side dish to just about anything.
Bread-and-Butter Pickles
For these pickles, I spiced up classic, sweet bread-and-butter slices with allspice and coriander. Generally, the smaller the cucumbers, the more crisp the pickles will be. I used very small Kirby cucumbers, and a month later mine still crunch with each bite.
Tzatziki
Tzatziki is a popular Greek sauce traditionally served with souvlaki and pita bread, but it’s super versatile in its potential: It’s a great snacking dip with crudités and chips, as well as a bright and tangy sauce to drizzle on grain bowls or serve alongside roasted chicken or salmon. Most commonly finished with dill, tzatziki is sometimes made — and equally delicious — with other fresh herbs, like mint or oregano. It can be made a few hours ahead and will keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.
Sweet-and-Spicy Grilled Vegetables With Burrata
A colorful platter of soft, grilled vegetables in a sweet-and-spicy sauce can be the centerpiece of a light summery meal; just add some creamy cheese for richness and crusty bread to round things out. This recipe is extremely adaptable. You mix and match the vegetables, increasing the amounts of your favorites (or the ones you can get your hands on), and skipping anything you don’t have. And if your grill is large enough, you can make several different kinds of vegetables at the same time. Just don’t crowd them so they cook evenly.
One-Pot Roasted Squash Soup
You could make pumpkin or squash soup by roasting the pumpkin on a sheet tray while sautéing onions, carrots and ginger on the stovetop before combining it all with stock and blending it. But it’s tedious compared with tossing everything into an oven-safe pot, roasting it all, then blending it directly in the same pot. The onions cook a little unevenly using this method, and that’s a good thing: Some slices sweeten gently while others deeply caramelize as they roast, giving the soup more complexity. For a little sweetness, some apples or pears are added to the roast as well, but you can omit them if you prefer a more savory soup.
Roasted Squash With Spiced Onion Gravy
Make a meal out of this smothered squash by having it with rice and salted yogurt, or serve it as a side for roast chicken or a seared pork chop. The mild winter squash gets a punch from a spicy and tart onion gravy that comes together while the squash roasts in the oven. Be sure to season the gravy aggressively with salt so the vinegar, chile and spices pop.
Vegetable Maafé
A great maafé effortlessly balances sweet, savory, earthy and spicy. Maafé is often called West African peanut stew, but that’s an oversimplification. Across the region, there are many versions that feature peanuts as a base, and all are greatly nuanced: For example, there’s akitiwa in Togo, nkatenkwan in Ghana and miyan taushe across northern Nigeria. This highly adaptable stew can be made with any assortment of meat, poultry, seafood and seasonal vegetables you have on hand (see Tip), but this one goes all in on produce. Keeping the Scotch bonnet whole in the sauce controls the heat: cook to soften, then break it open to dissolve seeds in the sauce for more heat, or cook and remove the softened whole chile from the sauce for less heat. Serve it all over steamed rice, millet or fonio, with some lime slices for squeezing. Maafé can be made ahead, refrigerated and reheated for a warm, comforting meal whenever you need — its rich flavor only improves with time.
Butternut Squash, Leek and Za’atar Pie
This comforting pie makes a great vegetarian centerpiece, ideal for a celebration. It benefits from being assembled the day before, receiving a good amount of time to set in the fridge and thus involving a lot less work on the day you plan to enjoy it. You can also bake the whole thing a few hours in advance, then just reheat it in the oven for 20 minutes, if you like. Use any extra pastry trim to cut out fun, festive shapes like holly leaves or stars to personalize your pie. Serve this alongside roasted veggies or a big leafy salad.
Chicken and Cabbage Salad With Miso-Sesame Vinaigrette
This simple salad calls for a specific set of ingredients, but it can also be considered a loose guideline. Thinly sliced leftover steak, shredded salmon or sliced dense tofu could easily take the place of the chicken — and that chicken can be left over from the night before, whether it's been poached, grilled, pan-seared or cooked on a rotisserie. Any crisp, crunchy lettuce will do. You could opt for shredded carrots and diced jicama instead of cucumber and radish, or add a handful of split cherry tomatoes and raw snap peas cut on a bias. As long as the basic balance of protein, dressing, greens, vegetables and herbs is maintained, the rest is up to you and your vegetable drawer.
Squash and Spinach Salad With Sesame Vinaigrette
This vibrant squash salad can stand on its own as a main salad or as a side to accompany all sorts of roasted meats or fish. Kabocha squash can be cooked with its skin on, and a simple roast results in supersweet, creamy flesh. The triple-sesame vinaigrette combines sesame seeds for crunch, tahini for smooth texture and toasted sesame oil for rich, nutty flavor. Equally tasty warm or at room temperature, this salad is super adaptable. (Delicata or acorn squash also have edible skins and are great alternatives.) It makes a terrific lunch, with the addition of beans or soft-boiled eggs for extra protein.
Spiced Squash and Phyllo Pie
This savory vegetable pie is modeled after the classic Moroccan b’stilla, usually made with squab, pigeon or chicken. It isn’t traditional, of course, but this vegetarian version is quite delicious, flaky, buttery and fragrant with spices. A diced preserved lemon adds perfume and sharpness, but you can also use a regular lemon. B’stilla normally has a layer of scrambled egg, but here, it’s replaced with a mixture of thick yogurt and feta. As with the original, everything is encased in golden, crisp buttered phyllo, sprinkled with confectioners’ sugar and cinnamon and served piping hot.
Five-Spice Butternut Squash in Cheesy Custard
Orange butternut squash, golden custard and fiery-red pepper and sesame topping reflect the colors of fall in this dish. It’s perfect for a festive brunch, as it’s filling enough to keep you going until the big feast, and special enough to really feel like you’re celebrating. Serve this with some lightly cooked greens, if you like.
Grilled Cucumbers With Tomato-Cardamom Dressing and Mozzarella
Grilling cucumbers gives them a nice charred flavor while retaining their bite. Try to buy Persian cucumbers that are thicker as the thin ones can often be too flimsy to cook. Torn mozzarella adds richness to the cucumbers doused with a garlicky, spiced tomato dressing. (Feel free to cook the cucumbers on an outdoor grill, treating them in the same way.) If you’re into creamy cheeses, then burrata works very well here, too — or, you could keep this dish vegan by leaving out the mozzarella completely. It will still have a wonderful umami flavor without it. Make this a complete meal by serving alongside your protein of choice.
Smashed Cucumbers With Cumin Tahini
Cool, watery cucumbers and warm, rich sesame oil are a classic combination in Asia, and the chef Danny Bowien builds on that tradition here by using sesame paste and smashed cucumbers, which have even more crunch and juice than sliced ones. The lime, oregano and cumin in the dressing can lean either Middle Eastern or Mexican, but in any case they are a perfect pairing for cucumbers. Mr. Bowien adds a pinch of sugar to the strainer; it does wonders for transforming the color and taste of the cucumber peels, which can be bitter. He serves this dish with a funky, fiery drizzle of chorizo oil with dried shrimp and XO sauce, but a little chile paste and vinegar is a fine accent, too.