Soups
Butternut Squash Soup
A silky, golden soup of butternut squash roasted until caramelised at the edges, then simmered with sweated onion, garlic, a little red chilli and sage, blended smooth and finished with a swirl of crème fraîche.
- Serves 4
- Hands-on 20 min
- Roast 35 min
- Simmer 15 min
- Freezes well (before the crème fraîche)
- British
Method
Heat the oven to 200°C (fan 180°C, gas 6). Toss the squash (1 kg) with half the oil (2 tbsp) and a good pinch of salt and pepper, spread it out on a large roasting tin and roast for 30–35 minutes, turning once, until soft and browned at the edges.
Meanwhile melt the butter (25 g) with the rest of the oil in a large saucepan. Add the onions (2 onions) and a pinch of salt and cook gently, covered, for 10–12 minutes until soft and sweet but not coloured.
Add the garlic (2 cloves), chilli (1) and sage (a little) and cook for 2 minutes more.
Tip in the roasted squash, scraping in any caramelised bits from the tin, then pour in the hot stock (850 ml). Bring to the boil and simmer for 10–15 minutes.
Blend until completely smooth with a stick blender or in batches in a jug blender (let it cool slightly first and do not overfill). Add the nutmeg (pinch) and stir in most of the crème fraîche (100 ml). Thin with a little boiling water if it is too thick, and season to taste.
Ladle into warm bowls, swirl in the rest of the crème fraîche and scatter over the pumpkin seeds (2 tbsp).
Tip: tap a step to tick it off as you cook.
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See also
Chef’s notes
- Short of time? Skip the roasting: add the raw squash with the stock and simmer for 20–25 minutes until tender. The soup will be paler and a little less sweet.
- For a richer American-style soup, America’s Test Kitchen roasts the squash with apples and shallots and finishes it with cream and a dash of maple syrup.
- Make it vegan with olive oil instead of butter, vegetable stock and oat crème fraîche or coconut cream.
- Freeze the soup before adding the crème fraîche; stir it in when you reheat.
How this recipe was developed
We compared BBC Good Food’s butternut squash soup (its best-rated) with Jamie Oliver’s squash soup, America’s Test Kitchen’s roasted version and the two most-rated soups on Allrecipes.
- Roast first. America’s Test Kitchen roasts the squash before simmering for a deeper flavour; we do the same and give a quicker no-roast route in the notes.
- Onion, garlic and a mild chilli. BBC Good Food’s version (4.8/5 from 814 ratings) builds on onions, garlic and mild red chilli and finishes with crème fraîche.
- Sage. Jamie Oliver cooks his squash soup with sage and rosemary; we add a few sage leaves.
- Creamy but not heavy. Allrecipes’ most-rated version blends in cream cheese; we keep the crème fraîche from BBC Good Food, which is lighter and sharper.
Sources we compared (ratings as shown on each site on 1 November 2026):
- BBC Good Food (Good Food team): Butternut squash soup (4.8/5, 814 ratings)
- Jamie Oliver: Superb squash soup (5/5, 2 ratings)
- America's Test Kitchen: Roasted Butternut Squash Soup (3.9/5, 367 ratings)
- Allrecipes (Mary): Butternut Squash Soup with Cream Cheese (4.6/5, 3374 ratings)
This is an original Cookeryonline recipe written in our own words. Ingredient choices and techniques are credited above; no source text has been copied.