Butternut Squash Rosemary Soup – A Reliable Favorite

This comforting butternut squash rosemary soup is great for crisp weather days. It is a delicious and healthful way to eat seasonal produce that your family will love.

As with all soups, you can play with the ingredients to suit what you have or like. Any winter squash or sweet potatoes would go well in this recipe.

Butternut squash vs sweet potato

Both butternut squash and sweet potato will provide you with antioxidants like beta-carotene, which your body converts to vitamin A.

Sweet potatoes are about twice as calorie dense as butternut squash, so if you are hungry you can definitely swap out the butternut squash for sweet potatoes. If you are eating this soup with bread or with something else, the butternut squash may be satisfying enough on its own. You could even do half sweet potatoes and half butternut squash.

Vitamin A is fat soluble, which is why this recipe includes half and half and olive oil. Butter or your fat of choice are also good options to pair with orange produce for this reason.

For more information on the health benefits of butternut squash, you can check out this article from healthline.

The best way to cook butternut squash

The winner: The Instant Pot

For this recipe I used my Instant Pot, which is significantly faster than baking a butternut squash in the oven as I did in the past. I cut the butternut squash into quarters and removed the seeds.

Next, I added one cup of water to the Instant Pot and placed the squash quarters in the water. I used the pressure cook option for eight minutes, then let it sit for ten minutes before releasing the pressure.

Then, I took the butternut squash out of the hot water to cool a bit. After cooking, the skin will sometimes just peel right off with a little help from a spoon or knife. If it doesn’t, the squash is very soft and you can easily scoop out the flesh with a spoon and add it to your soup pot.

Alternatives

If you don’t have something like an Instant Pot, you can just use a casserole dish in the oven. Cut the butternut squash in half and scoop out the seeds. Then, place the squash cut side down in an inch or so of water (salted if you’d like) and bake at 350° for 45 minutes to an hour, or until it becomes tender.

You can also microwave butternut squash, again after cutting in half and removing the seeds. Eight to ten minutes should do the trick.

Technically, if you have a young, tender butternut squash you can eat the skin, which is healthy and adds fiber. I tend to buy them with high ambitions of cooking them right away, but then they sit for awhile, so I removed the skin for this recipe.

Butternut squash rosemary soup ingredients

Before you begin, you will need:

• 1 medium to large butternut squash
• 1/2 an onion, finely chopped
• 2 cups vegetable broth
• 1/2 cup half and half
• 2 cloves fresh garlic, minced
• 1 Tbsp fresh rosemary, finely chopped
• 1 tsp rubbed sage
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
• 2 Tbsp olive oil

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How to make butternut squash rosemary soup

1. First, cook the butternut squash (see above if you don’t have an Instant Pot). Chop the squash in half or quarters and remove seeds. Place in one cup of water in your Instant Pot and pressure cook for eight minutes.
2. While the squash is cooking, finely chop your onion and rosemary, and mince your garlic if you don’t use a garlic press.
3. Once the squash has finished pressure cooking, let it stand for ten minutes, then release the pressure valve, remove squash from the hot water, and let cool a bit until you can handle it without burning your fingers.
4. While the butternut squash is cooling, add the olive oil to a large soup pot and place it over medium heat.
5. When the oil is hot, add your chopped onions and cook until they are translucent.
6. While the onion is cooking, remove the skin from the butternut squash (much easier after cooking) and roughly chop into cubes.
7. Next, add your minced garlic and fresh rosemary to the onions in the pot and cook until fragrant.
8. Then, add in the squash and use a potato masher or a wooden spoon to squish down the chunks of squash until the consistency is more like soup.
9. After that, add your half and half and continue stirring.
10. Then, add in the sage, salt, and pepper and stir to combine.
11. Finally, add in vegetable broth until the soup achieves the consistency you would like. Taste it and see if you want any more half and half, broth, salt, etc. and you’re done!

Garnishes

You could garnish this with fresh parsley, pepitas, or whatever you think would be good. Many people enjoy a scoop of sour cream with their butternut squash soup.

Serve on its own or with bread or naan, as pictured.

If you try this butternut squash rosemary soup, please let me know how you like it by rating the recipe or leaving me a comment.

Make it vegan

Omit the half and half. Add more olive oil as desired for a richer soup and to help with absorbing the fat soluble vitamin A.

Variations on butternut squash rosemary soup

While I personally prefer savory soups, you can make this a sweeter soup by removing the garlic and onion and adding baking spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, etc. (or the ever popular pumpkin spice blend).

If you find fresh sage, that would be a lovely addition instead of dried.

Celery would be excellent in this soup, as would carrots. Sadly, I didn’t think about adding celery until I was already browning the onions and didn’t have any on hand.

In addition, you could also add potatoes and/or sweet potatoes. However, potatoes would change the character of the soup a bit.

Fresh fennel would also be good in this soup. You could brown it with the onions. Note: I used to look for fennel with the other fresh herbs in my grocery store, and of course it was never there. It is with the cabbages.

Feel free to adjust the amount of half and half and vegetable broth to suit your taste, or use cream instead.

Curry and chickpeas would add some nice heft to this butternut squash rosemary soup as well!

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Related vegetarian soup recipes

You may also enjoy:

• Irish vegetable soup
• German potato soup
• Mediterranean soup
• Vegan green goddess soup
• Vegan spicy zucchini soup

I hope you enjoy this butternut squash rosemary soup!