Air Fryer Butternut Squash // Easy & Healthy Side Dish & Soup Recipes

Today we're making air fryer butternut squash with cinnamon that is the perfect healthy side dish. And stay tuned to the end of the video where I'm going to show you how to transform the cooked butternut squash into a super simple and delicious creamy butternut squash soup. Hi everyone and welcome back to Clean Eating Kitchen. I'm Keri and this is my channel where I share easy gluten-free and dairy-free recipes to help you manage symptoms of PCOS or autoimmune disease. So if that sounds like something you're interested in, please subscribe and hit the notification bell so you're alerted whenever I upload a new video. I love using my air fryer to make recipes that I would traditionally make in my big kitchen oven but the air fryer usually makes them so much faster. So today we're starting with one pound of cubed butternut squash. You can either buy it pre-cubed or you can peel and chop your butternut squash yourself. I also like to cut the pieces into about half inch pieces just to make sure they're going to get cooked and crispy on all sides. We're going to use just about one teaspoon of melted coconut oil that I'm going to toss with the butternut squash and about a half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon. And you don't have to worry about the butternut squash tasting overly cinnamony. The cinnamon really just helps bring out the naturally sweet flavors of the butternut squash. So I'm just going to stir it all together. Now I'm not going to add any salt and pepper at this point because I'm afraid that the salt and pepper will fall through the basket of the air fryer. So we'll add the salt and pepper later. Butternut squash is one of my favorite fall ingredients. It is a winter squash and it's naturally sweet. It's also rich in beta carotene fiber and antioxidants which come from its bright orange color. And cinnamon is also a really healthy ingredient and can help lower blood sugar. So your air fryer may require preheating. Mine does not. So I'm just going to open up the drawer here and add the squash into the basket. And then we'll just close the drawer and set the time to 400 degrees at 30 minutes. And if you were to make this in an oven it would take at least 45 or maybe even up to 60 minutes. So this really is a time-saving recipe. So my air fryer started and we'll come back when the butternut squash is done cooking. The butternut squash has finished cooking and it actually took only about 20 minutes. So you do want to make sure to check it while it's cooking to make sure it doesn't get burned. And what I'm going to do is take it out of the basket here and we'll just add it to a bowl. And then we are going to make our soup. Now you guys know me. I don't get dressed up for my videos. Just in case you're interested, my normal schedule is I have this studio where I record. So I come over here in the morning and I usually shoot a video. And while the food is cooking I do a short little workout at home because it's not safe to go to a gym right now. And then usually in the afternoons I edit my videos and I work on a blog post. So that's my little schedule in case you're interested. And that is why I'm usually not dressed up for my videos. So I hope that you don't mind. Now of course you can serve this butternut squash just right out of the air fryer. You might want to add a little pinch of salt and maybe some pepper. But since we're going to make it into a soup I'm not going to add any salt now because we're going to be using some broth that has some salt in it. So I don't want the soup to be too salty. So our butternut squash soup is going to be really easy and since we've cooked the squash already it's going to have a really nice roasted sweet flavor. It's just going to be perfect. So I have added about it's about two cups of cooked butternut squash just in case you want the exact measurement. We have that and then since I don't eat dairy and I'm assuming if you watch this video maybe you are dairy free or you're interested in going dairy free and I will actually link an article in the description box below which has some reasons why dairy can be inflammatory and why it's good for people with PCOS or autoimmune conditions to avoid most dairy foods. I have two tablespoons of hemp seeds here and the hemp seeds are what is going to add the creaminess to this smoothie as well as the healthy fats that I'm always talking about and healthy fats are just so important for helping your body absorb nutrition like the beta carotene from the squash. And then we're going to add two cups of a reduced sodium vegetable broth. Now you may have seen my instant pot kabocha soup recipe and in that recipe I use chicken broth but today to keep this recipe vegan and vegetarian for my plant-based friends I'm using vegetable broth. We just have to lock on the lid and we're going to blend it up. That's it it really only took about 30 seconds as usual so let's serve the soup and I'll taste a little bite. Now you can also heat this on the stovetop if your broth is not hot or you can preheat the broth and then when you blend it with the Vitamix then it will be hot. Now you do need to be really careful when you're blending hot liquids. I did not do this but you can put a towel over the top when you're blending just to be extra cautious. And for a little topping to the soup I have a little tiny bit of coconut yogurt here which I'm just gonna put right on top it adds just even a little bit of creaminess. So let's give our creamy butternut squash soup a taste. It is so naturally sweet not overly sweet. It probably needs a little tiny bit of salt but it is a very delicious soup and I hope that you love this recipe. As usual I'm going to link to some of my favorite dairy-free Vitamix recipes. I have smoothies and soups and all kinds of yummy recipes and if you like this recipe you might want to check out my air fryer sweet potato recipe where I made three different kinds of sweet potatoes in the air fryer. I will link that below and also at the end of this video and I will see you in the next one.