Creamy Butternut Squash Pasta

Okay so remember the Pumpkin & Butternut Squash Soup from a while back? We had some leftover butternut squash and I said we'll use it for another recipe. Well here is that recipe! By now you've probably discovered that I love pasta. I would gladly eat it for every meal if I could. So it's no surprise that I found a way to incorporate the remaining butternut squash into a pasta dish. But trust me, this one is hearty and soooo good.

We're talking roasted butternut squash, browned butter, thyme, sage, Italian sausage, and cream to bring it home. This is absolutely the perfect dish to eat while it's cold and rainy outside and you want something warm and filling.

Let's breakdown the stars of this meal:

1. Pasta of Choice: 8 oz of spaghetti work great for 3-4 people. You could just as easily substitute the spaghetti for fettuccine or linguine. You want a long noodle versus a short one like rigatoni or penne.

2. Italian Sausage: I typically choose mild Italian sausage in all of my recipes because I can then control the heat through crushed red pepper flakes. If you love all things spicy, hot Italian sausage would also be delish! The sausage can also be omitted to make the dish vegetarian.

3. Butternut Squash: In this particular recipe, I'm using the remaining half of squash from the soup. More info on how I cooked it here. For the sake of texture, one half of the remaining squash gets diced up and sauteed and the other half gets blended to create the base for our sauce. This way, you are sure to get all the flavor of the butternut squash, but don't run into the issue of having every component of the meal being the same texture.

4. Breadcrumbs: These add an extra crunch to the overall dish. All about textures over here! I used plain bread crumbs and added a pinch of seasoning salt, garlic powder, and pepper along with a generous amount of herbs de provence (Italian seasoning works as well.) To save yourself some time/effort, you can purchase Italian breadcrumbs. These become a beautiful deep brown once cooked off on the stove with some olive oil.

Other components:

1. Cream: The butternut squash is pretty creamy on its own, but the addition of heavy cream brings it up a notch.

2. Pasta Water: This recipe requires reserving ~1 cup of pasta water (taken from the pasta before draining it). I always take more than I need just in case, so I saved 1.5 cups of pasta water and only used 1 cup. The addition of pasta water to the sauce helps to thin it out. The blended squash, while creamy, is thick, so the pasta water helps to alleviate that.

3. Parmesan: Because no pasta dish is complete without a topping of parmesan.

4. Parsley: Because we love decoration!

Okay! Onto the recipe!

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The first thing I did was bring a pot of water to a boil and cook the spaghetti according to the package's directions (10-11 minutes for al dente). When it was done, I reserved 1.5 cups of pasta water before draining the pasta and setting it aside. Meanwhile, I sauteed my breadcrumbs with 2 Tbsp olive oil over medium heat until they turned this deep brown color. I then set them aside.

Next up I browned the Italian sausage (~6-8 minutes) over medium heat. I then spooned it onto a paper towel lined plate and set it aside.

With my remaining butternut squash, I diced one half and sauteed it in the skillet with 2 Tbsp of butter until they got that nice brown crust (pictured above).

With the other half of the remaining squash, I blended it in the blender until relatively smooth. You may need to add water (or chicken broth if you have it) to help it blend. I just added a small splash of water, blended for a bit, checked, added another splash, and repeated until it was smooth. It looks a bit like mango sorbet when it's done. Set aside.

Now for the sauce! One tablespoon at a time, melt the butter in the pan over medium heat. Once one Tbsp has melted, add the next. We're browning the butter in this step. Make sure your heat isn't too high or else the butter will burn instead of brown. You want to see foaming as you add in each tablespoon (pictured above). Once all the butter is melted, add in the garlic, thyme, sage, and other spices of choice (I used seasoning salt, garlic powder, onion powder, pepper, nutmeg, and a pinch of sugar). I cooked this for about a minute.

I then added the squash and ~1/2 cup of the pasta water and stirred continuously for about 1 minute. I tasted it and adjusted the seasonings. I then added about 1/4 cup of cream and stirred until combined. Next I added the sausage and once again mixed. At this point my sauce was still a bit too thick so I added another 1/2 cup of pasta water. I let the sauce simmer for about 5 minutes and then it was time to assemble!

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Recipe Notes:

1. Make it vegetarian: The sausage in this recipe is completely optional! It would taste just as delicious without it!

2. Butternut Squash Note: This recipe using the remaining half of butternut squash from the soup recipe made previously. Find instructions on how to season and roast your butternut squash here. I halved the half of squash. One half was diced and cooked in the pan while the other half was blended to add thickness to the sauce.

3. Seasoning mix: I religiously use a mix of seasoning salt, black pepper, onion powder (OP), and garlic powder (GP).

4. Breadcrumbs: This recipe produces a lot of breadcrumbs. I like this in order to have some pre-seasoned and ready to go for future recipes. For example, these work great for Chicken Parmesan (recipe coming soon). If you don't want quite so much left over, reduce the amount by half (so, only prepare 1/2 cup as opposed to 1 full cup).

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As always I hope you enjoy this recipe! Let me know if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them!

xo, Toni