Printable Recipe: Butternut Squash and Roasted Garlic Soup with Caramelized Vidalia Onions

Butternut Squash and Roasted Garlic Soup with Caramelized Vidalia Onions

This soup is filling, flavorful, and perfect for a vegetarian Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner. It also makes a wonderful vegan Thanksgiving recipe, as well. If you're juggling a lot of side dishes (which is pretty likely for Christmas and Thanksgiving!), this one is easy to make in advance. Prepare this soup in the morning, and simply re-heat when you're ready to serve. Simple, eh?

Serves 4-6.

Ingredients:
1 lg. butternut squash (about 3 lbs.)
1 head of garlic
2 lg. vidalia onions, thinly sliced
2 tbsp. olive oil
3 C. of vegetable broth
1/2 tsp. dried basil
1 tsp. dry, rubbed sage
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
salt, to taste

Instructions: 1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

2. Cut butternut squash in half. Remove stringy insides and seeds. Discard.

3. Place squash halves in a roasting pan, skin-side-down. Roast 20 minutes.

4. With a sharp knife, cut off the top of the head of garlic, leaving cloves barely exposed. Drizzle with olive oil and place garlic in pan with squash.

5. Roast squash and garlic together about 20 minutes more, until squash is very tender.

6. While squash is cooking, carmaelize onions. Combine onions and 1-2 tbsp. olive oil in a hot skillet.

7. Sprinkle with sage, salt, and pepper. Saute until brown and carmaelized, stirring occasionally.

8. Remove squash and garlic from the oven and allow to cool about 15 minutes before handling. Scrape out squash flesh and squeeze out garlic cloves.

9. Bring vegetable broth to a simmer in a large pot. Add squash, garlic, and 3/4 of the carmaelized onions.

10. Simmer 5 minutes, then blend with an immersion blender. (Alternately, you can blend squash, onions, and garlic together with a food processor before adding to vegetable broth.)

11. Add basil and more salt and pepper to taste.

12. Simmer 15-20 minutes. Top each bowl with remaining carmaelized onions.