Roasted Butternut Squash with Garlic & Purple Onion

Sometimes the simplest foods have the most to offer.

Butternut squash is one of my favorite sides because it's easy, slightly sweet, and gives you so much more than another source of carbohydrates on your plate.

It's a source of fiber, beta-carotene (which the body converts to vitamin A), vitamin C, potassium, and other plant compounds — making it a great vegetable to work into meals when you're thinking about blood sugar, gut health, and supporting normal immune function.

And it tastes really good roasted with garlic and onion, which is probably the most important requirement in my house.

Why Butternut Squash?

Blood Sugar Health

Butternut squash does contain carbohydrates, but that's not a reason to avoid it.

It also provides fiber, including soluble fiber. Fiber helps slow digestion and can help moderate the rise in blood sugar after a meal.

Rather than labeling individual foods as "good" or "bad" for blood sugar, I like to look at the whole plate.

Pair your butternut squash with a quality protein, healthy fat, and additional vegetables. Protein, fat, and fiber help slow digestion and create a more balanced blood sugar response than eating a carbohydrate by itself.

So don't fear the squash. Build a better plate around it.

Gut Health

Butternut squash provides both soluble and insoluble fiber.

Soluble fiber can be fermented by beneficial gut bacteria, while insoluble fiber helps support normal bowel movements and digestive regularity.

And we're not stopping with the squash.

Onions and garlic contain prebiotic compounds that can help feed beneficial bacteria living in the gut. This makes this ridiculously simple side dish a pretty great way to add more plant diversity to your diet.

One caveat: garlic and onions are high in certain fermentable carbohydrates, or FODMAPs. For someone with IBS or who is currently sensitive to FODMAPs, they can cause gas, bloating, and other digestive symptoms.

Remember: a healthy food isn't necessarily a healthy food for every person at every stage of healing. Adjust the recipe according to your individual tolerance.

Immune Support

That beautiful orange color isn't just pretty.

Butternut squash is rich in carotenoids, including beta-carotene, which the body can convert into vitamin A.

Vitamin A plays an important role in normal immune function and helps maintain healthy epithelial and mucosal barriers — including the barriers lining the digestive and respiratory tracts.

Butternut squash also provides vitamin C, which supports normal immune function and acts as an antioxidant in the body.

Vitamin C is sensitive to heat, so cooking can reduce some of it. That doesn't mean cooked vegetables suddenly become nutrient-dead.

Different nutrients respond to cooking differently. While prolonged heat can reduce heat-sensitive nutrients like vitamin C, cooking can make some carotenoids more accessible to the body.

We're also adding some fat from the avocado oil, which helps with the absorption of fat-soluble carotenoids.

The goal isn't to cook our food perfectly.

It's to eat a variety of nutrient-dense foods prepared in ways we actually enjoy.

Roasted Butternut Squash with Garlic & Purple Onion

Ingredients

• 1 butternut squash

• 1 purple onion, diced

• 1 tablespoon minced garlic

• Avocado oil

• Salt and pepper to taste

Step 1: Preheat

Preheat your oven to 400°F.

Step 2: Wash and Prep Your Squash

Wash the outside of your butternut squash thoroughly before you peel or cut it.

This is important anytime you're cutting into produce because your knife can carry dirt and bacteria from the outside of the squash into the flesh.

It's especially important for this recipe because we're keeping those scraps for broth. If we're going to cook with the peel and ends later, we want to make sure they're clean before we start.

After washing, cut off both ends of the squash — and don't throw them away! Set the ends aside for your vegetable broth along with the peel.

Peel the squash and remove the seeds. Then cut the squash into either cubes or French-fry-style strips.

Either way is good. There's no need to make this complicated.

Save those clean peels and ends. Put them aside or add them directly to a freezer-safe vegetable scrap bag for the broth recipe I'll be sharing next.

Step 3: Prep Your Onion

Dice one purple onion.

Again, keep the clean parts you would normally discard, such as the ends and outer layers that are clean and free of mold or decay.

Add them to your growing vegetable broth pile.

Less waste + homemade broth = win.

Step 4: Season

Spread the squash and onion out on a roasting pan or sheet pan. Try to keep everything in a single layer so it cooks evenly.

Drizzle with avocado oil and add:

• 1 tablespoon minced garlic

• Salt to taste

• Pepper to taste

Toss everything together until the vegetables are lightly coated.

I prefer avocado oil for roasting because of its neutral flavor and suitability for higher-temperature cooking.

Olive oil and some types of coconut oil can also be appropriate for cooking, so you don't need to be afraid of them. Avocado oil is simply my preference for this recipe.

Step 5: Roast

Roast at 400°F for approximately 25–30 minutes, turning the squash about halfway through if needed.

Your exact cooking time will depend on the size and shape of your pieces.

You're looking for squash that is roasted, soft, and tender with some light browning on the outside.

You don't need to heavily char or burn it to get good flavor. Keeping the cooking time reasonable also helps limit unnecessary loss of heat-sensitive nutrients such as vitamin C.

Step 6: Build Your Plate

Serve your roasted squash as a side alongside a quality protein and additional vegetables.

If blood sugar is something you're working on, don't just focus on whether a food contains carbohydrates.

Look at the whole meal:

Protein + healthy fat + fiber-rich plants + your carbohydrate source.

That might look like grilled beef, chicken, fish, or another protein you tolerate alongside your roasted squash and a colorful non-starchy vegetable.

Simple food doesn't have to mean nutritionally boring.

This little orange squash gives us fiber for the gut, carotenoids and vitamin C to support normal immune function, and a nutrient-dense carbohydrate source that can easily fit into a blood-sugar-conscious meal.

And we're not done with it yet.

Save those squash peels, squash ends, and onion scraps.

Keep a freezer-safe bag or container for clean vegetable scraps. You can gradually add things like squash peels and ends, onion scraps, carrot ends, celery leaves and stalks, and herb stems. Once you've collected enough, we'll turn what would have gone into the trash into homemade vegetable broth.

Vegetable broth recipe coming next.