Best Butternut Salad
Best Butternut Salad
This delicious, savory, and slightly sweet salad is made up of nutritious sautéed butternut squash and fresh spinach with a creamy apricot dressing. It pairs well with our (Almost) Hands-Free Butternut Squash Risotto!
Happy & Healthy Cooking,
Fun-Da-Mentals Kitchen Skills
- blend :
to stir together two or more ingredients until just combined; blending is a gentler process than mixing.
- brown :
to cook food until it turns brown, crisper, and more flavorful from the heat of an oven, a pan, or the oil it is cooked in.
- chop :
to cut something into small, rough pieces using a blade.
- toss :
to lightly lift and drop food items together or coat food items with flour, or a sauce or dressing, as in a salad.
Equipment Checklist
- Skillet
- Food processor or blender (or large bowl + immersion blender)
- Cutting board
- Kid-safe knife
- Dry measuring cups
- Wooden spoon
- Measuring spoons
- Large salad bowl
Ingredients
Best Butternut Salad
- 1/2 to 1 C frozen and thawed butternut squash (or, if you made the risotto recipe, the reserved additional browned butternut squash)
- 3 T olive oil + more for browning squash
- 1 green onion
- 1 fresh apricot (or 2 dried apricots)
- 1 T honey or sugar (or 1 1/2 stevia packets)
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp ground black pepper
- 1 T vinegar
- 1/4 C freshly grated Parmesan cheese **(Omit for DAIRY ALLERGY or sub 1/4 C dairy-free/nut-free grated Parmesan cheese)**
- 2 C fresh spinach, lettuce, or arugula, washed and dried
Food Allergen Substitutions
Best Butternut Salad
- Dairy: For 1/4 C freshly grated Parmesan cheese, omit or substitute 1/4 C dairy-free/nut-free grated Parmesan cheese.
Instructions
Best Butternut Salad
chop + brown
If you have already browned the butternut squash for the salad (from Step 1 of the (Almost) Hands-Free Butternut Squash Risotto recipe), continue to Step 2 below. If not, have your kids chop 1/2 to 1 cup of frozen and thawed butternut squash. Add some olive oil to a skillet on your stovetop, brown the squash until soft, and set it aside.
chop + measure + blend
To make the dressing, have your kids chop 1 green onion and 1 fresh apricot (or 2 dried). Add them to a food processor or blender (or large bowl to use with an immersion blender). Then, have kids measure and add 3 tablespoons olive oil, 1 tablespoon honey or sugar, 3/4 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon black pepper, 1 tablespoon vinegar, and 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese (or sprinkle the cheese on top of the finished salad). Blend the dressing until it is creamy and thick.
scrumptious science
Friction is the resistance met when one surface or object moves against another. Friction's effects vary based on surface materials and roughness. When chefs whisk and blend food, they are utilizing the power of friction to create new foods, flavors, or textures. In the above step, friction from the blend helps to emulsify (or hold the ingredients together) the ingredients in the salad dressing.
add + toss
Pour the dressing into a large bowl and add the 1/2 to 1 cup browned butternut squash and 2 cups fresh spinach, lettuce, or arugula. Toss the salad with the dressing and enjoy immediately!
Hi! I'm Butternut Squash!
"I've got a long neck with a rather bulbous end—like a bell or bottle! I'm related to the pumpkin, and in Australia, they call me a butternut pumpkin!"
History & Etymology
- Squash are one of the oldest known crops—10,000 years by some estimates of sites in Mexico. All squash is native to North America, but the butternut variety didn't exist until the 1940s, when Charles Leggett, a Massachusetts man, crossed a pumpkin with a gooseneck squash.
- "Squash" comes from the mid-17th century Narragansett word "askutasquash"), which means "eaten raw or uncooked." This squash is called "butternut" because of its nutty flavor.
Anatomy
- Botanically, butternut squash is a fruit and belongs to the Cucurbitaceae family that includes cucumbers, honeydew melons, pumpkins, watermelons, and zucchini. However, as food, it is used as a vegetable.
- Butternut squash is a type of winter squash that grows on a vine, and when ready for harvest, they have a hard tan skin that you can't pierce with a fingernail, yellow-orange flesh that gets more orange when ripe, and a hollow seed cavity with edible seeds.
How to Pick, Buy, & Eat
- Winter squash are cured for the best flavor, as their natural sugars have a chance to concentrate. They are picked with part of their stem left on, then left in the sun, and kept dry for about 7 to 14 days. (Although, they can also be cured indoors.) Their skin hardens as they sit, allowing them to last longer in storage.
- Butternut squash is seasonal, and in the US, the best time to buy ripe local squash is September through October.
- Look for butternut squash with a solid beige color without deep cuts or bruises. A little surface scratching and marks from where it sat on the ground are acceptable. Select one that feels heavy for its size and leave any with brown spots or punctures, as bacteria and mold could develop.
- Store butternut squash in a cool, dark place in your kitchen, and it will keep for 2 to 3 months—it does not need to be refrigerated.
- Its unique flavor can be used in both savory and sweet dishes. You can cook it in various ways: roasted, grilled, steamed, or puréed. It is a side dish or an ingredient for soup, pasta, dips, salads, desserts, and more.
- In South Africa, cooks use butternut squash to make soup, or they grill it whole, seasoned with cinnamon and nutmeg or stuffed with spinach and feta and wrapped in foil.
- The skin is edible if softened during roasting. Roasted butternut squash seeds can be eaten as a nutritious snack, just like pumpkin seeds, or their oil can be pressed for cooking or salad dressings.
Nutrition
- Butternut squash is a good source of soluble fiber, beta-carotene, vitamins A, C, and E, manganese, magnesium, and potassium. It has more vitamin A than that of a pumpkin. It is high in water content and very low in calories: one serving is just 45 calories!
- Butternut squash has natural antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties and is good for your skin and eyesight.
Let's Learn About Italy!
- Italy became a unified country in 1861, only 150 years ago. It is sometimes called "bel paese" or "beautiful country."
- Italians invented the piano and the thermometer!
- In ancient Roman mythology, two twin brothers named Romulus and Remus founded Rome, Italy's capital city. The myth says the twins were abandoned and then discovered by a she-wolf before being found and raised by a shepherd and his wife. Eventually (and after many exciting adventures), they found themselves at the location of Palatine Hill, where Romulus built "Roma." The Italian wolf became Italy's unofficial national animal.
- In the 1930s and 40s, Mussolini, Italy's prime minister, and dictator tried to eliminate all foreign words from the Italian language. How did he do that? He just changed them! For example, in soccer, "goal" became "meta." Disney character names changed, too: Donald Duck became "Paperino;" Mickey Mouse became "Topolino;" and Goofy became "Pippo." Although they're not banned anymore, these words and names have stuck. So now if you go to the Italian Disneyland, called Gardaland Park, you will see Topolino and Pippo!
- About 60 million people call Italy home, and it is 116,350 square miles, slightly larger than the US state of Arizona. If you compare that to the United Kingdom, 67 million people live there, and it is about 94,350 square miles. So, the UK is smaller than Italy but has a bigger population!
- The Italian flag is green, white, and red. These colors represent hope, faith, and charity.
- The average Italian eats close to 55 pounds of pasta annually. If you think about how light pasta is, that is a considerable amount! There are more than 500 different types of pasta eaten in Italy today.
What's It Like to Be a Kid in Italy?
- Kids begin school at 6 years old. They grow up speaking Italian, but they learn English in school, so many become bilingual in Italian and English.
- The most popular sport for kids is football (soccer). The Italian word for soccer is "calcio," the same word they use for "kick." A favorite of younger kids is "Rody, the bouncing horse," a plastic horse that a small child can hop onto and bounce around the room. Rody was invented in Italy in 1984.
- The family ("la famiglia") is a central characteristic of Italian life. Children have great respect for their older relatives. It is traditional to name the first male child after the grandfather and the first female child after the grandmother.
- If kids live close to school, they can go home and have lunch with their families! Lunch at school might be pasta, meat with vegetables, a sandwich, or a salad with lots of ingredients. Families typically eat dinner later (7 to 8 pm), so kids end up staying up later, too!
- Between lunch and dinner, kids often enjoy "merenda," which is an afternoon snack that translates to "something that is deserved." It is really a mini-meal that can include both savory and sweet foods. Examples of savory foods are a salami or mortadella sandwich, a slice of rustic bread rubbed with a cut, raw tomato, or "pizza bianca" (white pizza without tomato sauce). Types of sweet foods eaten during merenda are "gelato" (a lower-fat type of ice cream), any kind of cake, or biscotti dipped in warm milk.
Lettuce Joke Around
What is the favorite sport of Butternuts?
Squash!
That's Berry Funny
"Knock, knock!"
"Who’s there?"
"Butternut."
"Butternut Who?"
"Butternut lock me out!"
That's Berry Funny
What did the butternut say to the farmer?
Don’t squash my enthusiasm!
