Butternut Squash Apple Soup

This delicious butternut squash apple soup is a simple and quick to make autumn soup that your whole family will love. The soup is simply seasoned with garlic, ginger, and cinnamon. Apples complement natural butternut squash sweetness. I served it with swirls of yogurt, crushed pretzels, and toasted pecans.

We also love this pumpkin and ginger soup with orange and butternut squash soup with coconut milk!

Ingredients:

Here’s what you need to make butternut squash and apple soup:

• Butternut squash – you can also use pumpkin, especially sugar pumpkin or Hokkaido pumpkin, you prepare it the same way as the butternut squash.
• Apples – I prefer to use sweet apples for this recipe as I like my soup sweet (I used Gala apples), but you can use any apple variety that you like. If you prefer sweet-sour flavors in your soup, use sour apple variety like Granny Smith.
• Aromatics – classic butternut squash soup aromatics: onion, ginger, and garlic. I also added a touch of cinnamon since it pairs perfectly with apples and squash. Instead of cinnamon, you could add pumpkin pie spice – it’s based on cinnamon with a touch of other aromatic spices like cloves, allspice, ginger, and nutmeg. I bet it would taste amazing.
• Clarified butter – this is what I used to sautee the aromatics but if you don’t have it on hand just use regular vegetable frying oil. Clarified butter adds a delicious flavor to the soup, it’s also super quick and easy to make at home!
• Broth – use vegetable broth or chicken broth. You can use homemade broth or good-quality store-bought broth, but I wouldn’t recommend bouillon cubes for a soup.
• Cream – the soup is also tasty without it so omit it if you like to make it vegan (and use oil instead of butter). I personally prefer it with cream.

How to make homemade vegetable broth:

You can use store-bought broth to make this soup but making homemade vegetable broth is super easy. All you need to do is add to a large pot: 2 large carrots (peeled and cut in half), a piece of peeled and cut in half parsley root, a piece of peeled celeriac, 1/2 of a leek, 1 peeled and cut in half medium onion, 2 unpeeled cloves garlic, a couple of sprigs parsley (and also other fresh herbs you have on hand like rosemary or thyme), 3 bay leaves, 3 allspice berries, 15 black peppercorns, a little bit of salt. Pour over 9 cups of water and cook over medium heat for 1.5 hours. Strain the vegetables (you can discard them) trying to squeeze them out as much as possible. Your broth is ready to use! You can store it in the fridge for up to 4 days or freeze it for up to 3 months.

How to prepare butternut squash for a soup:

• I wanted this recipe to be as quick and easy as possible so I used raw squash, peeled it, chopped it, and added it to the soup. This is the quickest way to make this soup.
• An alternative way to prepare butternut squash for this soup is to roast it. The advantage of this method is that roasting squash makes it more flavorful and sweet, also you don’t have to peel it and chop it, just cut it in half, pop in the oven preheated to 400°F/200°C and roast for 30-50 minutes (depending on the thickness of the pumpkin/squash pieces), then scoop out the flesh. The only disadvantage is the baking time – you have to plan ahead a little bit and you can’t enjoy the soup right away. I personally prefer to roast the butternut squash as the soup tastes a little bit better prepared this way. The choice is yours! If you’d like to see step by step photos showing how to cut and roast butternut squash or pumpkin, check out this post: How to make pumpkin puree. Add your baked butternut squash (without the skin) to the pot along with the apples and broth and proceed as written in the recipe.
• How to get even more flavor – peel and chop the squash as described in the recipe then roast it until all the edges are golden and caramelized. This is a little bit more work but it is so worth it! These caramelized crunchy edges add so much flavor. To see how it should look like, check out this recipe for roasted butternut squash – it’s the same method but here you just need to toss the squash pieces with olive oil and don’t add any spices.

How to make it step by step:

STEP 1: Prepare all the ingredients: Peel the butternut squash, scoop out the seeds, and cut it into 1-inch (3 cm) cubes. If you would like to see step by step photos showing how to peel and cut butternut squash, check out this recipe for roasted butternut squash. Peel and core the apples, then cut into cubes. Dice the onion, finely chop garlic and ginger.

STEP 2: Sautee the aromatics: Heat the clarified butter or oil in a big pot over medium-low heat. Add the onion and cook for about 5 minutes or until soft and translucent. Add the ginger, garlic, and cinnamon and cook, stirring, for about a minute.

STEP 3: Add the chopped butternut squash and the apples. Cook over high heat for about 1-2 minutes, until the squash is lightly browned.

STEP 4: Add the broth. Bring to a boil and cook over low heat for about 15 minutes. The butternut squash should be fork tender.

How much broth to add: depends on how thick you like your soup. The soup from this recipe comes out not very thick – this is how we preferred it. If you’d like it thicker, add less broth, about 3 cups. If the soup is too thick for your liking you can always add more broth at the end.

STEP 5: Puree the soup until smooth. You can do that with a hand (immersion) blender or in a stand blender.

STEP 6: Take the pot off the heat. Add the cream, and season the soup with salt and pepper. If the soup is too sweet for you, you can always add a little bit lemon juice. I preferred it without lemon juice.

Enjoy!

What to serve it with:

-> I served my soup with swirls of plain yogurt, crushed pretzel, and toasted pecans. The crushed pretzel idea came from my 3.5 yo daughter, who, to my surprise, threw a bunch of salted pretzel into her soup. This combo was really so delicious! Salty and crunchy pretzel work so well with this soup! Toasting the nuts is optional but it brings out so much flavor from them.

How to toast pecans: place them in a dry pan over medium heat, cook them for a minute or two until lightly browned. Take them off the pan immediately as they can burn very easily. They brown very quickly so you need to keep an eye on them all the time.

-> Caramelized apples and pecans – this is a great option if you prefer your soup very thick. This topping won’t go well with the recipe as written – the soup is too thin and this topping will submerge into the soup instead of staying on top. I prefer this soup rather thin than super thick so I chose another toping (see above). If you’re making your soup thicker, then give this topping a go!

How to make caramelized apples and pecans: Heat 2 Tbsp of granulated sugar in a small pan/pot over medium heat. Keep an eye on the sugar as it can easily burn and be bitter. The sugar with dissolve and change its color to golden brown. When the sugar has turned into caramel, add a teaspoon of butter, half an apple cut intothin slices, and a couple of pecans. Cook for a couple of minutes until the butter is melted, the apples are soft and coated in caramel. Drizzle over the soup. Yum!

-> A simple topping – sprinkle the soup with pumpkin seeds / sunflower seeds / pecans.

-> Grilled cheese sandwiches.

-> Puff pastry cheese straws.

Storage and freezing:

How to store the soup: Store the soup in the fridge for up to 4 days. The soup reheats very well.

Can this be frozen: Yes. Freeze the soup preferably without the cream as the cream can split. You can also freeze the soup with cream – since this is a creamy soup, even if it splits you can just puree it once again and it will be as freshly made!

Did you make this recipe? RATE THE RECIPE or tell me in the COMMENTS how you liked it! You can also add a photo of your dish. It would make me very happy and will help other readers. Thank you!!