Amazing Butternut Squash Soup Recipe

Hey, I'm John Kanell, and today on Preppy Kitchen, we're making an easy, delicious butternut squash soup. So let's get started. First off, there's a little bit of prep work. We wanna grab a three pound butternut squash, and I'm going to give it a slice carefully, peel it, deseed it, and give it a cube. This is actually easiest if you just cut it into two pieces. Now we can remove the skin and cube it up. I love the color of this squash. All that beta carotene. I'm cutting these into smaller pieces so that when I simmer it, it all cooks together faster. If you have big, giant pieces, you will be waiting a while for them to soften up. That's a lot of seeds. A lot of the times you can get pre-peeled and cubed butternut squash at the supermarket, but I love prepping it up myself. Super fresh. All right, all cubed up. A little bit more prep work. We want one medium onion. I grabbed this out of my garden this morning. I love a fresh onion because there are no tears. Look, ah, on my eyes, nothing's happening. It's a new onion. This soup's all gonna get blended, unless you want it chunky. So the diced size doesn't really matter. Don't be precious about it. I could literally rub this in my eyeballs and be fine. I'm so happy about this. It makes tending those onions all season worthwhile. All right. Now I'm gonna add two tablespoons of olive, oh, wrong burner. Now I'm adding two tablespoons of olive oil into a large pot over medium heat. Once that olive oil is dancing in the pan, I can add the onion in. While that heats up, start mincing some garlic. We want about six cloves of garlic, which means at least eight. It's math. It is on. No one told me it wasn't on. Couldn't see. I'm making this soup by special request from Lachlan and George. They are soupaholics and just love all kinds of soups. It's really adorable. They're like two little old people. When my mom was visiting, we were making Nana's chicken soup and Nana's vegetable soup with vegetables from the gardens. They were going out to pick the vegetables, helping her cut, which was adorable. And they were so proud of the soup that they ate all of it. Like, plowed right through it. But they went with me to a farmer's market, saw a butternut squash, and they were like, wait, what is this? We talked about it, talked about butternut squash soup, and they asked if I would make it for them. So this is part of their dinner tonight. All I have to do is finish this recipe before dinnertime. So many flavors can go into this soup. It's crazy. One that I love, apple. This is so great with cubed apple inside. You can add it in with the butternut squash. It softens up and gives you a wonderful, like, little bit of acidic sweetness and depth of flavor. My oil is nice and hot, so right now I'm going to toss my onion in. Our onion's gonna cook. You'll be stirring occasionally, and it'll take maybe 10 to 15 minutes for it to start browning and take on some color. We really wanna take this from being saddled onion to, like, delicious, depth of flavor, caramelized onion. So, you know, it's like a caramelized onion you'd use for a French onion soup, but it's taking on some color. It's really giving us some flavor and adding a lot to the soup. While that cooks, just finish mincing your garlic, and then you can do some cleanup. My onion's nicely browned. It's time to add your garlic in, and we're gonna stir for two minutes constantly. Do not let your garlic burn. That would be sad and bitter. Also, reduce heat to medium or medium-low, depending on how hot your pot got. Super fragrant, and after two minutes, we're gonna add half a teaspoon of cinnamon. That spice is gonna bloom in the hot oil and really release a lot of flavor. And I'm adding 1⁄8 to 1⁄4 of a teaspoon of nutmeg. It's just to your taste. Stir that for about a minute. You'll feel, like, all this amazing spice coming right into your nose. You'll smell it. You'll smell a lot of delicious spice. Now it's time to add our squash in. Add and stir, because everything will burn on the bottom if you just leave it under the squash. I'm also adding in half a teaspoon of salt. We can add more later to taste. And half a teaspoon of freshly cracked black pepper. By the way, this is like a delicious, nice butternut squash soup. You can add so many different flavors and take this in different directions. When my mom makes this at home, she loves to add curry and chili powder to this to give some heat and more flavor. You can add other spices that you really enjoy and just, like, just play with it. It's your soup. You can do a lot with it. You can add chicken broth if you want that flavor. I'm keeping it vegetarian today. And why three to four cups? Three cups will give you a thicker, creamier soup. Four cups will give you a thinner soup. It's totally up to you and what you enjoy. Now for the fun part. We're gonna let this simmer away for 30 to 40 minutes or until the butternut squash is very tender. Then we'll come back, but in the meantime, just give it an occasional stir every once in a while. We'll be right back. My soup simmered away until the butternut squash was nice and soft. Now, you can eat it like this if you want, but in my mind, it should be nice and smooth. This is called a blender. You could use an immersion blender for this, but honestly, a regular blender or even a food processor is so much easier and, like, just less annoying. And if you're like, John, I love creamy soups, but I want this to be even more rich and indulgent. What could I do? Well, here's the deal. You can add, like, maybe a quarter to half a cup of heavy cream in here. Amazing. Or if you're vegan and on dairy, I would just use some coconut milk and it works really well in here. I actually love coconut milk in this soup, regardless of, like, dietary preferences. But that's because I love coconut. Everything. Okay, we're gonna blend this up right now. I should point out that I let my soup cool down just a little bit. I find it really annoying to blend fire-hot things. Let's also remove the cap, just so pressure doesn't build up in here. The top cap, not the whole thing. I was like, why is it doing this? It's cause I've been pulsing. Instead of pressing start. Now is a perfect moment to give your soup a taste. Mm, nom nom nom. I love this. If it's too thick and luscious, you can add chicken stock, water, coconut milk, cream. Any of those things is gonna change the consistency and some of them will make it even more delicious. I like to garnish my soup with a little pepper, a dash of cinnamon, and a sprinkle of fresh thyme. This soup is a quintessential fall treat. It's cozy, warm, comforting, and really easy to make too. Something I enjoy all autumn long and even at the end of summer, when I'm ready for all those fall feelings. I made it just in time for dinner. I'm about to serve this to the boys, but it's so delicious. It's comforting, cozy, full of all those fall flavors and so easy too. I hope you get a chance to make this recipe and if you like this video, check out my soup playlist.