When I was a typical kid, I was a finicky eater especially when it came to vegetables. As far as I can remember the only veggies I ate were peas, carrots, mushrooms, cauliflower and potatoes. Tiny onion pieces in meat dishes were painstakingly picked out and decorated the side of my plate meal after meal. My parents tried their best to ply me with all sorts but to no avail. Popeye could keep his spinach and the whole other lot too.
Strangely, once I listened to my father’s pleading to try some butternut. He mentioned it was sweet. Immediately my ears perked up. Sweet, you say? One mouthful of the stuff and I was sold forever. The South African way of preparing it is with generous lashings of butter, a tonne of sugar, a bit of salt and if you’re lucky some ground cinnamon. It all will be mashed to create a smooth, irresistibly sweet pile of goodness, more fit for a dessert than a side dish.
Shortly afterwards we went on holiday to Cape Town. For the first time ever I saw butternut soup on the menu. Living a bit more on the wild side than before I ordered it and have been hooked ever since. Now it’s your turn. 
Update
Astonishingly, month after month, year after year this recipe has been consistently viewed more times than any other recipe on this site. The sad part was the original image, which has now been removed. Surely, the photo and recipe needed some sprucing up, and here it is – enjoy!
2 Ways to Cook Butternut
- Boiling: Peel the butternut, remove the seeds and chop it in chunks. Just follow the recipe as stated below.
- Roasting: This is my preferred method of cooking pumpkins. Halve the butternut, drizzle some oil on it, add some garlic and herbs, e.g. rosemary, if you fancy them, and place the dish in a 180°C(fan 160°C/355°F/gas 4) preheated oven. Roast for 45-50 minutes, or until the squash is tender and has turned golden-brown in places. The butternut’s flavour intensifies in the cooking process and becomes even sweeter. Peeling the skin off the flesh is now much easier too. After softening the onions in the pot, add the cooked butternut to it and don’t forget to add the roasted garlic too! Boil for only 10 minutes, then blend. Voila!
Simple Butternut Squash Soup & Special Diets
- Weight Watchers or other Low-Fat Diets: [Option 1] Leave out the butter and use low fat cooking spray to fry the onions with which would turn this dish into 0 ProPoints! [Option 2] Omit frying the onions separately and boil them with the butternut instead.
- Vegetarian: Use Knorr‘s vegetable stock instead of chicken stock.
- Vegan: Leave out the butter and use more olive oil.
- Baby Food: Leave out the garlic, stock and salt. Use water to boil the vegetables instead.
Don’t Have Enough Butternut?
Use other root vegetables, e.g. carrots and parsnips, to make up for the weight specified in the recipe. This easy solution will introduce new, interesting flavours to the soup!
How To Jazz Up Your Simple Butternut Soup
Chances are you will like this soup so much that you’ll make it again and again. Why not play with one variation or another each time? Here are a few ideas:
- Nutmeg
- Cinnamon
- Chili
- Rosemary
- Rind of ½ a lemon
- Fresh ginger
- Fresh sage
- Paprika
- Curry paste
- Sherry: Add the sherry after frying the onions and before you add the butternut and stock.
- Coconut Milk: Add a bit less stock to the vegetables and add some coconut milk to them, then boil.
What To Add When Your Simple Butternut Squash Soup Is Ready
- Spring Onions
- Parsley
- Cilantro/Coriander leaves
- Chives
- Cream
- Greek Yogurt
- Bacon
- Blue Cheese
- Goat’s Cheese
Wine Pairing
Most people often don’t think about matching wine to soups as they find pairing liquid to liquid an odd concept. Think about it instead then as matching the wine to the components that make the soup and you’ll find it much easier.
Falanghina is a traditional southern Italian white grape variety that shows myriad flavours and aromas, especially when served lightly chilled rather than cold. There is a subtle sweetness on the palate that lends itself perfectly to vegetables, particularly sweet ones like squash, and the fresh citrus quality helps lift the flavours on the finish. Falanghina has a smooth texture and a delicate hint of spice running through the backbone so if you’re adding cinnamon or nutmeg to your soup it really brings it to the fore. Buy it here.
Equipment You Need For This Recipe
You’ll need a chopping board and the fact that it’s beautiful makes the cooking process so much more enjoyable. A decent sharp knife is a must when it comes to peeling a butternut squash. If you’re planning on having roast butternut soup a decent roasting pan is a good idea. Let’s not forget a good-sized pot to boil the soup in. Most importantly, we need a hand blender to create a silky smooth soup. Just click on the links to view further information about these specially selected products.
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- Serves: 4
- Serving size: 248.1g
- Calories: 200
- Fat: 9.5g
- Saturated fat: 4.3g
- Unsaturated fat: 0
- Trans fat: 0
- Carbohydrates: 29.7g
- Sugar: 0.1g
- Sodium: 52mg
- Fiber: 3.3g
- Protein: 2.5g
- Cholesterol: 16mg
- 15ml (1 tbsp) olive oil
- 30g (1 oz) butter
- 1 onion, peeled and chopped
- 1 clove garlic, crushed
- 900g (2 lbs) butternut, peeled and sliced
- 900ml (1½ pints) Knorr vegetable or chicken stock
- 30g (1 oz) chives, washed and roughly chopped
- Heat the oil and butter in a large saucepan, add the onion and garlic and gently sauté.
- When the onion has softened after about 5 minutes, add the butternut and stock and stir well. Bring to the boil. Simmer for 25 minutes or until the butternut is soft.
- Blend the soup with a hand-held blender or in a food processor.
- Season to taste, serve in four bowls and sprinkle with the herbs.
Your favourite type of bread, buttered, will go down a storm.
Notes
If you’re on Weight Watchers, simply omit the butter and oil and use low-fat cooking spray instead, which will turn the soup into 0 ProPoints! If you’re vegan, omit the butter and add more oil to the recipe instead. If you’re on a low-fat diet, leave out the oil and butter and use low-fat cooking spray.
Liked this recipe? Then you’ll love this one! Don’t forget about this easy step-by-step carrot soup too!
That looks really good! Soups make for such a nice start to the meal.
Looks good! Butternut squash soup is one of my favorites. I really like how such a simple soup can end up being so good!
This is definitely my family’s favorite soup too!!! Simple and easy, yet so comforting!!!!
The color looks so pretty. We like nutmeg in our’s!
wow, what a colour! Spring came to town?
I didn’t realise just how easy it was to make home made soup, thanks for this recipe. It looks fab and tastes very impressive for something so simple. I didn’t have any parsley so sprinkled over some coriander and a little black pepper, and served with a small dollop of greek yoghurt.
Just made this recipe i have got to say it is lovely! first time i’ve tryed butternut squash just because i didn’t know what to do with it before i saw this recipe, but very nice i must say.
Looks like i will be having soup for the next few weeks!.
did this for a catering exam, found adding an extra clove of garlic and sauteing the butternut squash also added a lovely strong flavour. Tastes nice garnished with corriander too!
Try adding half a chopped,deseeded red chilli,and/or the grated rind of half a lemon. This really gives it added zing!
delicious soup ….i omitted some of the water for the stock and added coconut milk yummy!
I just made your recipe and it’s super yummy! Thanks for sharing.
Mountain of butternut squash in the garden this year..just made gallons of your lovely soup, incorporating some of the above ideas into some..thanks from a blustery Northern France..
Incredibly easy to make, yet really delicious.
Just made this. Very easy to make and tastes yummy. Now have something to take in flask to work tomorrow
lovely, easy recipe, for an interesting diference stir in drained can of chickpeas to the blended soup.
I roast the squash first , makes it even sweeter with a really strong flavour.
Does anyone know how long the soup will keep for. I made some on Monday – and it’s now Saturday – would it still be ok to eat or not? AND can it be frozen?
Thanks xxx
Jacqui: As a general rule I don’t eat food that is more than 3 days old, so I can’t tell you whether the soup is okay or not. As long as you don’t add cream to it I don’t see any reason why you can’t freeze it though!
i am not a cook but being recently been made redundant and being at home all the time i thought i would give this a try believe me its the easiest thing i have ever done and the taste is great the only problem was peeling the buttersquash what a pain
christina
a frying pan a blender and a knife
dead easy
I USED A DUTCH CHEESE SLICER TO PEEL IT,CUT DOWN ON THE TIME.DOWN SIDE,MY HANDS ARE ALL ORANGE FROM THE FLESHY CENTRE.SMELLS GREAT WHILE COOKIN!!!
This was a great recipe. Very simple and very delicious
i needed a recipe to try and recreate a soup i had in San Jose when the added two scallops to the middle of each bowl of soup.
Great recipe, just made it, really, really tasty.
I made this a few weeks ago and it was absolutely delicous! I don’t cook (well unless you include bunging frozen food in the oven that is!) but this was simple to do but had an amazing taste to it. I added a little nutmeg to mine and some fabulous fresh bread (shop bought obviously!). My parents are coming down from London tomorrow to see my little one in his first nativity play and guess what they will be eating for their first course…. butternut squash soup! Thanks for recipe! xxx
try fresh chopped ginger also a bit differrent
I omitted the black pepper and the chicken stock (used filtered water)……still amazing taste.
Ooo! This sounds Yummy!
I’ll be making it for dinner tonight!
Try and bit of chopped up fresh sage to give it a twist. Is delicious!
Simply delicious – You will not be disappointed !
Lovely, delicious soup. I added a carrot and some fresh red chili pepper to give it a bit of a kick – scrumptious!!
Easy to make,omitted olive oil and used used lite one cal instead still tasty.Can use it as a free food at slimming world
and therefore eat as much as i want.
Lovely with a splash on coconut milk added at the end
So easy to make and so tasty, followed carol’s tip of adding half a red chilli and the rind of half a lemon. Will definatley be making it again.
just cooked this recipie delicious !!! I put some curry paste in with the onions and garlic what a winter warmer. I also found peeling the butternut squash a pain as well never mind more peelings for my compost bin!!!
Regarding peeling, put it in to the microwave for a minute or minute and a half, it will get softer and easier to peel. good luck
Wow!!! Its amazing, give it a try!!!
followed everyone’s tips, roasted squash, onion & garlic with cinnamon and seasoning. Once blended, delicious!
Thank you sooo much for this recipe!!! I didnt have anything on my fridge today but butternut squash,onion and garlic! Made the soup and it was lovely…but as I didnt have 900ml of stock (I used chicken stock), I add 300ml of coconut milk. My God, the soup was delicious!!
One of my two allocated butternut squashes turned out a bit icky and stringy inside, so I substituted it with the same weight in sweet potato – nice! Added a dash of Noilly Prat after sauteing the veg, seemed to lift it. Smidgen of cream & of truffle oil (cheap now at the supermarket) – yum!!
Jacqui (21nov09): If you want to keep the soup a few days in the pan, just bring it to the boil once each day for a couple of minutes to keep it fresh. You may have to add some water to replace what you boil away.
Great recipe. Have added it to my recipe collection for re-use.
What a great recipe. We are attempting to grow our own butternut squash this summer and if it works, I can see lots more of this delicious soup on our menu.
Absolutely love this recipe… have made it three times now and every time it tastes better! Thank you. Might try the coconut milk suggestion next time… yummy!
Gosh I made this today as I absolutely love butternut squash and was watching a cooking programme which said to roast the pips with some soy sauce…which I did and they turned out well. I was fortunate to find your receipe for soup and made 3 times the amount due to the size of the squash but it turned out really lovely. I will definately try the coconut milk and curry paste. Thank you for sharing this receipe it was truely delicious! I note what people say about peeling the squash but I didn’t find it too bad with a potato peeler.
Thanks for the positive comment, Sandy! Any feedback is always appreciated. There are other butternut/pumpkin soup recipes on Greedy Gourmet in case you want to get more adventurous.
Giving this soup a try tonight!
Leaving out the garlic & salt, and using low salt stock so my 7 month old can share it with us. As the squash was hers in the first place and i’ve pinched it to make soup lol.
From all the great comments I cannot wait to start cooking!
x
I’m looking forward to trying this recipe. It sounds so easy, and I need “easy” at the moment as I am heading for chemo again next week for the second time in two years.
I live on soup for part of each cycle, so looking forward to trying this. The reviews say it all!
I just made this for my lunch, it was delicious. Thanks. Useful too because I managed to use up the squash that I had leftover from my beef stew.
This looks like a great recipe! Think I will try cooking this for the girlfriend very soon (will let everyone know how we get on!). Will be perfect for the winter months coming soon!
Never tried squash before so looked through so many recipes … not brave enough to try them though. When I landed on this page and saw all the great comments I headed straight for the kitchen. It is so easy to make and tastes delicious. I added half a chilli as suggested above and used half stock and half coconut milk. Thanks for the recipe, it’s great.