Butternut Squash For Middle Eastern Minestrone

Asked by trishn. Answered on 9th July 2020

Full question

For the Middle-Eastern Minestrone soup, the recipe states “one butternut squash”. I tend to buy prepared butternut squash - can you tell me what weight should be used in this recipe?

Image of Nigella's Middle Eastern Minestrone — Photo by Keiko Oikawa

Butternut and Chick Pea Soup With Bulgur Wheat

By Nigella

Our answer

Nigella's Middle-Eastern Minestrone (from SIMPLY NIGELLA) is a soup influenced by the flavours and ingredients of a tagine. The ingredients include a butternut squash, which gives some leeway over size so that you can use whatever you have to hand.

A medium-sized butternut squash weighs around 1.2kg (about 2¾ pounds). As butternuts have a thin skin and a modest amount of seeds you only tend to lose around 5% of the weight to skin and seeds. So a medium butternut squash should yield approximately 1.1kg (about 2½ pounds) of flesh. As the recipe is fairly flexible you can buy something close to that amount, depending on the package sizes.