Eddie’s winter warmer: butternut squash and bacon soup recipe..
There’s nothing better than a thick, creamy, deeply warming soup to come home to after a bracing walk in the autumn weather. Or indeed not after a bracing walk – who doesn’t love a homemade soup at any time? Here’s a personal favourite I think you will love: butternut squash and bacon (the bacon bit is optional of course, as you can make this wholly plant-based if you prefer).
Butternut squash and bacon soup
Serves 2 to 4, depending on portion size!
Ingredients
1 butternut squash, peeled and cut into 2cm chunks
2 medium sized potatoes, peeled and chopped for boiling
1 large onion, peeled and chopped into quarters
2 garlic cloves, not peeled
1 stock cube (chicken or vegetable)
2 rashers of bacon, chopped (optional)
Salt & pepper
Chilli flakes (optional)
Creme fraiche, to serve (optional)
Freshly boiled water
Method
Pre-heat your oven to 170c (fan), gas mark 5. You can also use an air-fryer, just follow usual roasting instructions.
Place your butternut squash, onion and garlic in a roasting dish and toss with sunflower oil (or similar), season with salt and pepper and scatter a few chilli flakes across the top. The chilli flakes add a lovely extra dash of warmth to the soup, but are of course entirely optional.
Roast for 40 minutes, or until you are seeing some mild caramelisation – they’ll start going toasty brown on the edges and corners.
Place your potatoes in a pan of cold, slightly salted, water and boil until they slide easily off a knife, then drain the water and leave them in the pan. You can microwave a whole potato and just scoop the cut flesh out, if you prefer, but I find this dries it up a little and it can go a bit waxy.
Fry the bacon till cooked and a little golden round the edges, and set aside.
When the squash is cooked, tip this and the onion into the pan with the potatoes. Squish the roasted garlic from its paper and add this. At this point you can also add the bacon, if using, or you can choose to add it as a garnish when you serve the soup.
Add a stock cube to 500ml of freshly boiled water and stir to dissolve.
Add this to your pan and bring it all to a soft bubble, for five minutes.
Remove from the heat and use an immersion blender to break it down to a thick, creamy consistency. If you don’t have a stick blender, you can use a potato masher. Or you can use a food processor or smoothie maker, but for these you must allow it to cool before you add it, as they don’t love hot liquids in a sealed environment!
Add water until you get the consistency you prefer. Personally I like it really thick and smooth!
Share it out (or keep it all for yourself) and drop bacon bits (optional) and a spoonful of creme fraiche (optional) on the top.
Serve with hot crusty toast, slathered in your preferred butter. I love to spread soft goat’s cheese on my toast, it goes beautifully with the soup, but again, that’s very much optional!
Alternatives to butternut squash
It’s pumpkin season after all, so this can be made with the traditional orange pumpkin, or works really well with the darker orange Onion pumpkin you can find in most supermarkets at the moment.
Sweet potato also works really well for this soup method, and I tend to swap in cooked chorizo sausage for the bacon – either blended in or chopped and fried to scatter on the top.
Sunday lunch leftovers soup
We have butternut squash quite often on winter Sundays, and I love a leftover soup on a Monday. Just box up your leftover squash, a couple of roasties, a little of whatever meat you enjoyed (optional!) and next day you can make a single delicious portion of soup. Simply fry a small onion (I’m now in the habit of roasting one and a garlic clove on a Sunday, just for this next-day soup), add the leftovers to the pan with a stock cube and water, bring to a simmer then blend to the consistency you want. Sorted!
Whatever your favourite, enjoy!
Eddie – Friday 1st November 2024.
