Healthy Butternut Squash Casserole Recipe with Savory Mushrooms (2024)

If you crave a warm, autumnal bake, our butternut squash casserole recipe might be the answer. Make a huge batch of it, and it’ll be scooped up before you can take a second glance.

What Is Butternut Squash?

Butternut squash belongs to the winter squash family and grows on vines. It’s classified as a fruit, but when it comes to cooking, it’s treated as a vegetable.

In terms of shape, it has an elliptical shape with a bell-bottom compartment filled with seeds. Slice it in half and you’ll find a vibrant orange flesh hidden within the hard, yellow-orange outer skin.

Butternut squash is often harvested in late autumn or early winter. However, you can have it any time of the year, as it can be stored for a very long time.

Calories

100 grams of cooked squash provides 40 calories. Compared to cooked potatoes, which yield 87 calories per 100 grams, butternut squash has fewer calories.

Since butternut squash contains fiber, it is considered a clean source of carbohydrates. With a taste similar to pumpkins, butternut squash can be used to make delicious, “clean,” healthy pies.

Is This Butternut Squash Casserole Healthy?

Not only is it tasty, but our butternut squash casserole also packs an abundance of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.

Butternut squash is rich in vitamin A. This is crucial for healthy eyes, and enhances your immune system as an antioxidant.

Besides vitamin A, butternut squash contains a vast amount of other vitamins and minerals:

• Vitamin C: Can relieve common colds and boosts the immune system in general. Vitamin C is considered an antioxidant.
• Vitamin E: Functions like an antioxidant and can prevent severe diseases, including cardiovascular disease and cancer.
• Magnesium: Plays a part in many reactions in the body and maintains normal muscle function.
• Manganese: Considered an antioxidant that boosts the immune system as well as prevents diseases related to cell inflammation.

Our recipe also has white mushrooms, a great source of vitamin D2. Vitamin D aids the absorption of calcium in the body and keeps our bones healthy.

For more casserole recipe ideas, have a look at our best healthy casserole recipes.

How to Cut Butternut Squash

If you just want plain baked butternut squash, simply slice the squash in half lengthwise. Remove the seeds, season, and slide it into a preheated oven, skin side down.

For this casserole, you first need to peel the skin with a peeler. Then, slice it in half, empty its belly, and cut it into cubes.

Since squash can take a long time to cook, it’s crucial to cut it into bite-sized pieces. We cut ours like so:

Tips for Making

Simply spread your ingredients in a baking dish, cover with foil, put it in the oven, and voilà! A tasty bake is born.

But to make it the most flavorful dish, we found these tips to be useful:

1. Cook Your Ingredients First

In this recipe, we slightly stir-fry our ingredients before pouring them all into the baking dish. It may sound like extra work, but it really helps your ingredients to mellow and brings out the flavors.

Then, when you add the stock, it will slowly cook your squash and mushrooms, giving you delicious, savory bites!

2. To Foil or Not to Foil

By skipping the foil, the moisture you add at the beginning evaporates quickly, leaving you with a dry bake. Unless that’s more to your liking, we suggest using the foil for a juicy batch of baked squash.

Want a melted cheese topping? Simply remove the foil after baking, add cheese, and torch or broil it for about 3-5 minutes.

This will give you a satisfying squash casserole with a fantastic melted cheese topping.

How Long Does It Last?

A casserole is the kind of dish that you want to make a lot of. It’s always great to have leftovers you can reheat and enjoy within 5 minutes.

When it comes to reheating your refrigerated meals, the oven and microwave are two common options. While microwaving your food may seem convenient, it can affect the food’s flavor and texture, making it less appetizing.

The oven is the better option. Simply preheat the oven to 375°F, and then slide in your refrigerated casserole (covered with foil) for 10 minutes.

Can You Freeze It?

Yes, you can. And here’s how you do it:

First, leave your casserole to cool completely before freezing. After that, remove it from the baking dish and transfer to an airtight, freezer-safe container.

Frozen butternut squash casserole can last up to one month.

When you want to eat it, take it out of the freezer and thaw it slowly in the fridge. Once it’s thawed, transfer to a baking tray and reheat it in the oven as instructed above.

More Squash Dishes Right Here

When fall comes knocking, it would be a waste not to make the best of all the squash this season has to offer. Check out these fall recipes to bring some true seasonal flavors to your meals:

• Beefy Butternut Squash Pasta Recipe
• Butternut Squash Salad Recipe
• Healthy Pumpkin Pie Recipe
• Pumpkin Soup Recipe
• Parmesan-Crusted Sea Bass Recipe