curried butternut squash soup

curried butternut squash soup

with a genius hack! and grilled cheese croutons!

Caroline Chambers

Oct 24, 2026

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I was minding my own business scrolling Instagram last week

when I saw

Carolina Gelen

wrap a whole butternut squash in some foil, bake it, then blend the whole thing — skin, seeds, and all! — into a perfectly simple, silky, puréed squash soup. No wrestling with your butternut squash required! I dropped what I was doing and immediately tried it for myself.

It was delicious! Couldn’t be easier! Felt like magic!

I had already developed a creamy curried butternut squash soup to share with you this week, but had to rewrite it to use Carolina’s genius

whole butternut squash soup

hack instead. It’s too good not to! Be sure to check out

Carolina’s

version, which she shared in her Substack newsletter

SCRAPS

<3

In addition to a whole butternut squash, we’re going to wrap a whole head of garlic and a peeled shallot in the foil and roast those, too, for some extra depth of flavor and nutrients. Once they’re all perfectly soft, we’ll crank up the flavor with red curry paste (one of my favorite store-bought shortcut flavor-adds out there!), coconut milk, soy sauce, and more. We’ll also add white beans and cashews for some plant-based protein! Blend it all up with some stock and voilà.

And because what’s a creamy vegetable soup without a grilled cheese, we’ll make a few, cut ‘em up into tiny cubes, and throw them on top of our bowls as grilled cheese “croutons.” It’s a cozy, delicious,

easy

fall dinner, and I cannot wait for you to experience this whole-squash sorcery!

PS, I’d classify this as a walk away-style recipe. There’s about 15 minutes of actual hands-on work, but it does require about an hour and a half of time in the oven. Use that chunk of time to fold laundry or read or do whatever else you want.

Yes!!! It gets super tender baking in the steam-filled foil, so mixes right in. It’s also packed with fiber, antioxidants, minerals — all good things.

One caveat is if you want to use your immersion blender instead of a stand blender. In that case, I would ditch the skins. I’m scared they wouldn’t incorporate as well because immersion blenders have a less powerful motor. Just use a spoon to scoop the flesh out once it’s cool enough to handle.

We

are

going to scoop the seeds out before blending. If you have a super high-power blender and want to blend them too, be my guest! Carolina kept them in there!

If you love roasted red peppers, I have

a puréed soup that includes both butternut squash and roasted red peppers

! You could also throw a few peppers into the foil packet for this soup, FYI. It’s so good. If you’re craving tomato soup, make my

creamy but cream-less tomato soup

. For an array of veg, make

winter sunshine soup

! It packs tomatoes, red bell pepper,

and

carrots. And if you’re in the mood for creamy soup goodness but want a whole lotta greens, cook the hella green soup from

Make It Fast

(which, by the way, is still on mega sale

here

and

here

!)

We also

have a how-to

for making creamy vegetable soup using any vegetables you’ve got. Use it to cook through your CSA goods this season!

Serves 4 to 6

Cook time: About 1 hour 45 minutes (15 minutes active, 1 1/2 hours inactive)

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