A savory butternut squash gratin makes for a filling and meat-free fall meal or side dish. Opt to use pre-cut butternut squash cubes instead of prepping your own to cut down prep time by 90%.
I like to make this cheese-covered butternut squash casserole as part of a simple fall meal. The dish is a rich, crowd-pleasing vegetable side on its own, but it also doubles as a filling entrée for vegetarians.
The recipe is fairly flexible, too. While I love the savory richness that shallots add, I admit that they can be a tiny bit fussy since you have to sauté them, so you can totally skip them. (You could also sub a tablespoon of finely chopped onion.) And any medium-hard cheese will work here; I love to use Robusto gouda, that expensive cheese Whole Foods sells, which I buy only at the holidays. You could also use dried thyme in place of fresh sprigs, if that’s what you’ve got.
The only hard part of this recipe is wrangling a leathery-skinned squash into peeled cubes, a process that I’ve detailed in the recipe notes. But if you’d like to start with raw cubes that someone in the supermarket has already kindly created and put in a bag, please do.
Recipe Details: Butternut Squash Baked with Cream and Thyme
From Catherine Newman
Makes: 8 servings
Total carbohydrates: 9 grams per serving
Hands-on time: 45 minutes
Total time: 90 minutes
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 3/4 cup heavy cream
- 1-1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves, plus more for garnish
- Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 1 shallot, thinly sliced
- 1 large (3-pound) butternut squash (enough to make 2 pounds of cubes)
- 3/4 cup freshly grated aged cheese, such as gouda, gruyere, or parmesan
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400ºF and grease a large baking dish.
- In a small pan over medium-low heat, melt the butter and sauté the shallot until it is tender and just beginning to brown, around 5 minutes. Transfer it into a large bowl with the cream, salt, thyme, and plenty of black pepper; mix well.
- Peel and cut the squash, scraping out and discarding the seeds, or roasting them, if you prefer.
- Add the squash to the bowl with cream and mix well, then pour it all into the baking dish.
- Cover the baking dish with foil and bake in the middle of the oven for 30 minutes.
- Uncover the squash, gently stir in half the cheese, sprinkle on the remaining cheese, and bake, uncovered, another 15 minutes or so, or until the top is browned and the squash is tender when you pierce it with a knife.
- Allow the casserole to stand for 5 minutes before serving so that any remaining cream can thicken up. Garnish with more thyme leaves, if you like.