Step Apart, Butternut Squash—This Winter Squash Is Our Newest Love

Come fall and winter, nicely after juicy tomatoes have light from market stands, winter squashes step into the highlight to turn out to be a star ingredient in lots of kitchens. Though butternut squash will get extra consideration, acorn squash actually deserves a spot in your dinnertime roster—with its edible inexperienced exterior and nutty, candy orange flesh, it is lovely on the plate and pairs splendidly with loads of different greens. It is also gentle sufficient to function an almost-blank canvas for a variety of flavors, such because the candy and tangy date-orange dressing it is paired with within the recipe we’re sharing right here from our Birmingham, Alabama-based take a look at kitchen colleague Elizabeth Mervosh. 

For this autumnal facet, wedges of the candy, creamy squash are paired with thick slices of jammy, caramelized roasted crimson onion, then drizzled with an orange juice– and honey-tinged French dressing that’s studded with dates, and completed with crunchy pistachios. The playful mixture of fall flavors is just not solely scrumptious, however certain to be essentially the most talked about dish at your subsequent vacation gathering. (Sorry, mashed potatoes!)

In growing this recipe, it was vital for us that the roasted acorn squash and onions have a young and moist inside and candy caramelization on the outside—we did not need any dry and burnt or soggy, undercooked, and hard squash and onions. To attain the perfect texture on each greens, Elizabeth roasted batch after batch of acorn squash and onions and got here up with this intelligent roasting technique that ensures tender, completely browned greens each time.

Key Strategies for Completely Roasted Acorn Squash With Onions

Minimize the greens to a fair thickness. Reducing the squash and the onions into similarly-sized wedges not solely ensures a gorgeous presentation, however it additionally promotes even cooking. We discovered it simpler to chop the squash crosswise (in opposition to the ridges of the squash) fairly than alongside the ridges, which—bonus!—additionally reveals off the squash’s engaging fluted sides. And don’t trouble making an attempt to peel the squash; its pure ridges make that nearly inconceivable. Simply roast it with the pores and skin on—it is sometimes skinny sufficient to eat, however if you happen to favor it with out the pores and skin, the meat of the squash will peel away simply from the pores and skin as soon as the squash is roasted.

Roast the onions and squash on separate baking sheets. Elizabeth realized early on in her testing that the onions and squash cooked at completely different charges. Cooking them collectively was a recipe for undercooked crunchy onions with tender squash, or completely cooked onions with mushy overcooked squash. The answer? Roasting them on separate sheet trays, which ensures the squash is tender and the onions soften evenly.

Prepare greens alongside the perimeter of the sheet pan for even roasting. Roasting on separate sheet trays nonetheless wasn’t sufficient to ensure evenly browned and correctly cooked greens. When the greens had been simply randomly scattered over the trays, they browned OK, however the browning wasn’t constant: The slices on the sides of the pan had been over-browning, whereas the slices within the middle of the sheet had been nonetheless pale. By arranging the squash and onion slices evenly across the perimeter of the baking sheet and avoiding the center of the pan altogether, then rotating the sheet midway by roasting, all the slices browned nicely. 

Begin by steaming the onions. A typical drawback with roasting onions is that their outer layers can dry out and switch leathery earlier than the inside petals are tender and the bottoms nicely browned. We needed roasted onions that had been comfortable and juicy from prime to backside. To get round this drawback, we began by masking the pan of onions tightly with aluminum foil, roasting them briefly—simply 10 minutes—then uncovering them and letting them end roasting whereas the squash cooks on the underside rack. Protecting the onions traps of their steam, and that steam is a strong cooking medium that softens the onion’s outer layers, guaranteeing that the outside peels received’t dry out.

Jumpstart the squash’s browning by preheating the baking sheet. Whereas inserting the squash across the perimeter of the sheet tray ensures even cooking, our testing confirmed that even after we cranked the warmth up and baked the squash on the bottom oven rack (closest to the warmth supply), the underside minimize sides of the squash had been nonetheless not getting as browned as we needed them. The answer was pretty easy: Preheating the baking sheet earlier than rapidly arranging the squash on the new sheet to roast, which helped enormously with browning. As soon as the squash hits the pan, it begins searing instantly.

As soon as your greens are roasted, all that’s left is to whisk collectively a punchy French dressing that’s enhanced with candy orange juice, honey, and dates with a touch of warmth from chile powder. Then this fall facet is prepared for its close-up.