If, like me, you like your salads abundant, hefty, and full of various textures, you’ll enjoy this salad to your heart’s desire all autumn long.

The best part about this roasted butternut squash salad is the multitude of flavors and colors it brings with the senses with each bite. The butternut squash offers tender comfort, the pepitas an earthy crunch, the cranberries a chew of sweet and tart, and the vinaigrette a splash of citrus and spice. While there is feta cheese in the ingredients list, you can easily omit it from your version of the salad in order to make it vegan.

Roasted Butternut Squash Salad with Arugula and Cranberries

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

For the salad

• 1 cup uncooked farro
• 1 butternut squash, peeled, seeded and skinned
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1/3 cup dried unsweetened cranberries
• ¼ cup pepitas
• 3 cups arugula
• 3 ounces feta cheese, crumbled

For the vinaigrette

• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon maple syrup
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Cook the farro according to package instructions. Once finished, set it aside and let it cool to room temperature. You can transfer the cooked farro to a bowl and pop it into the refrigerator to accelerate the cooling process.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Dice the butternut squash and place the pieces on a baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Place the baking sheet into an oven and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the butternut squash pieces are tender and lightly browned.

In a large bowl, add the arugula, pepitas, feta cheese, cranberries, and cooked butternut squash. Toss.

In a separate small bowl, whisk together all of the vinaigrette ingredients. Pour the vinaigrette over the salad and toss until evenly coating all of the ingredients.

Serve and enjoy!

Related on Ecosalon
Vegan ‘Chicken’ Spring Salad Recipe
Arugula Salad Vegan Pizza Recipe
Serve Up a Superfood Salad

Photo Credit: iStockPhoto.com/AnjelaGr

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Seventeen butternut squash recipes you’ll want to explore, from sweet to savory.

It’s butternut season! Everyone rejoice, because your favorite, buttery, nutty squash is all over the place, and that means you need tasty and delicious butternut squash recipes at your fingertips.

Why are butternut squash recipes so popular? Maybe it’s because of its gorgeous color, or like other squashes, that it works just as well for savory as it does for sweet ones. Whatever it is, there’s nothing wrong with eating a little more butternut, especially during the fall harvest season.

Butternut squash has high levels of vitamin A and C as well as folate, and it has been reported to help with everything from arthritis to the health of your lungs, so eat up. Here are 17 mouth-watering butternut squash recipes to put on your fall cooking list:

1. Butternut Squash Coconut Curry

Half tropical, half seasonal, this butternut squash recipe is a creative twist on the classic soup.

2. Spicy Butternut Squash and Black Bean Burger

Looking for butternut squash recipes you can eat without a spoon? This vegetarian burger is a hefty hand-food that will please the biggest appetites.

3. Butternut Squash Tart with Fried Sage

While sage and butternut are a common pairing in butternut squash recipes, frying the sage puts a fun twist on this savory tart.

4. Red Lentil and Butternut Squash Stew

This vegan dish is the perfect thing for when there’s an autumn storm brewing and all you want to do is curl up and eat comfort food.

5. Stuffed Butternut Squash with Quinoa

The unique shape of a butternut squash makes it perfect for stuffing. In this dish quinoa and black olives bring out the squash’s natural, earthy flavor.

6. Spicy Squash Salad

Unlike some roasted butternut squash recipes, this salad can hold its own as a side or as a main dish.

7. Mushroom, Butternut Squash and Gruyère Tart

You can never go wrong with a savory tart this time of year, and with the addition of gruyère cheese you’ll impress anyone at the table.

8. Spiced Butternut and Quinoa Muffins

Who says butternut squash recipes are only for dinner? Two classically savory ingredients come together in a sweet muffin that will pair well with a morning cup of coffee or tea.

9. Butternut Squash Tacos

Butternut squash and chipotle powder in corn tortillas. Enough said.

10. Gingered Butternut Squash Pie

Forget pumpkin, this should be the new go-to dessert among your butternut squash recipes.

11. Grain-free Butternut Flatbread

This “bread” made from butternut squash can be used for everything from sandwich bread to pizza crusts.

12. Curried Butternut Squash Fries

Of all the butternut squash recipes, this may be the most tempting: make fries at home and ensure that they’re healthy.

13. Black Bean and Butternut Squash Burritos

Find your favorite whole wheat tortilla and wrap up this easy vegan meal.

14. Butternut Cinnamon Rolls

While you may never have thought to put squash in your cinnamon rolls, you’ll soon wonder why you never had. Gluten-free and vegan as well.

15. Butternut Squash Fritters

A healthy appetizer that’s made with chickpea flour.

16. Butternut Squash with Quinoa, Feta, Mint and Basil

Mint and basil give this dish a fresh spin.

17. Cinnamon Vanilla Roasted Butternut Squash Seeds

Dessert? Appetizer? Does it matter? Make a couple of batches to ensure you have enough to last.

Related on EcoSalon:

17 Vegan Halloween Recipes

50 Awesome Soup Recipes for Fall

Image: Quinn Dombrowski, woodleywonderworks

The post 17 Must-Try Butternut Squash Recipes For Fall appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnSuddenly, sweet potato fries don’t seem so bad.

Heard of butternut squash? Of course you have. I don’t know how one couldn’t, what with it being whipped into some not-your-average-squash creation in every organic, hipster and farm-to-table restaurant these days. Fitzgerald, were he around today, would have surely noted this celebrated starch; the butternut even has its own website.

It’s ravioli. It’s risotto. It’s sauce. It’s bread. It’s pie. It’s fries. It’s roasted, toasted, baked, braised, glazed, and available conveniently cubed at the grocer. Somewhere, someone has named her offspring after this thing that is not a yam. I don’t know if it’s made it into candles and body scrubs because I haven’t been to the beauty aisle in a while – what with being busy tracking down squash recipes and all – but I can only imagine what’s going on over there given what’s going on online.

Last week, I walked over to grab coffee at one of my favorite bakeries when I saw it: a gluten-free, vegan, butternut squash cupcake.

I momentarily paused before whipping out my phone to document this disaster in proper 2.0 style – I do hate to be that girl, but hey, I was already in a vegan gluten-free bakery. I snapped a semi-blurry photo and shared it with the world. Foodies, there’s a new cupcake in town, and it’s called butternut squash. The ubiquitous squash is precariously close to verging into beet, goat cheese and walnut salad territory. Or sliders. Or olive oil in desserts.

What about the acorn? Why aren’t we seeing roasted acorn squash fries on every brew pub menu? Or delicata? Even the name is refined – “I’ll take a glass of bubbly and some delicata, please” – and the cooking opportunities are equally endless.

Butternut is delicious, and totally versatile, which is wonderful, but we foodies may wish to observe a moment of gustatory introspection (as opposed to the more standard routines of navel-gazing, porn, and drool-tweets) and remind ourselves that we’re talking about a squash. A squash.

On that note, I’m off to eat lunch, with a nice bowl of one of my favorite dishes from Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural Cooking, Chunky Lentil Soup, full of healthy lentils and two whole cups of diced…butternut squash.

You just can’t win them all.

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s weekly column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground, discovering what’s new and different in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to the culinary avant garde.

Images: theilr, Anna Brones

The post Foodie Underground: Give It Up, Butternut appeared first on EcoSalon.