Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl's Top 5 Acorn Squash Recipes

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They're stacked up in beautiful gray-silver and white-orange piles in every farmers market, acorn squash. I love them. Full of vitamins A, C, and B-6, they're one of the green-light foods full of antioxidants we all should be eating more of. Like how? Like this!

Basic Acorn Squash
Recipe

If you're always been intimidated by acorn squash, turn the page! They're so easy. Just slice the pointy bottom off so they can stand steady, slice in half, scoop out the seeds, coat with some butter or olive oil, and roast. Here's a link to the absolute basic way to do them, and also a number of good ideas on how to jazz them up, with maple syrup, thyme and parmesan—easy but great.

Acorn Squash With A Maple-Bacon Drizzle
Recipe

This is my top recipe when you are a squash lover and trying to get a squash-skeptic on board—the crispy sweet bacon topping kind of turns the whole thing into dessert, and I think that's just fine.

Ginger Roasted Acorn Squash
Recipe

Ginger and squash are one of my favorite flavor-pairings, the spice of the ginger just fits like a hand-in-glove with the sweetness of the squash.  I like this recipe from Food & Wine that uses fresh ginger and adds a sort of pickled currant sauce—the sour really brings out the best in the squash.

Leftover Acorn Squash Smoothie
Recipe

What are you going to do when you make all the farmer's market squash and you have too much to get through? Make a smoothie!  Add some pumpkin pie spice, coconut water, a little peanut or almond butter—it's a very fall and very wonderful treat.

Jamie Oliver's Roast Squash
Recipe

At first you will think this is weird, but the Italian style of roasting squash, and then serving it cold as an antipasto ingredient is nothing short of terrific. The method is easy. You're just using a mortar and pestle to roughly combine olive oil, salt, cinnamon, chili peppers, and sage, and once you've got a nice paste you're going to rub it on the squash and cook it. Roast for a long time, let it cool, then spill into a bowl and dress with a little more olive oil. This is a lifetime keeper of a recipe; if you like finding roasted red peppers in an antipasti tray you will like finding roast squash there too. I promise!