How to Prepare Butternut Squash for Easy Dinners

Learn how to prep, store, and cook butternut squash with this easy guide! Perfect for quick, healthy dinners all season long.

Butternut squash and Chicken thighs with a sage, garlic, and shallot sauce on a platter with fresh sage leaves and topped with a buttery garlic, lemon, sage sauce. Lemon wedges, fresh sage leaves, and a kitchen towel on counter.

Butternut squash is a dinner game-changer—it’s nutritious, versatile, and surprisingly easy to prep once you know a few tricks. Whether you’re roasting it for a cozy side dish, blending it into a creamy soup, or tossing it into a quick stir-fry, this vibrant veggie adds natural sweetness, a velvety texture, and a boost of vitamins to any meal.

In this post, I’ll walk you through the best way to peel and cut butternut squash, how to store it for easy, last-minute dinners, and simple, delicious ways to use it all season long.

Whole butternut squash on counter for Butternut Squash and Chicken with sage, garlic, and shallots.

Butternut Squash is Healthy and Versatile!

Let’s start with the health benefits of this yummy, sweet and colorful squash. As you may know, I have a Certification in Nutrition and Healthy Living. So, I’m always looking at food a bit closer from a health perspective.

Butternut squash is loaded with Vitamin A, with 1 cup giving you 457% of the RDI (reference daily intake). It is also a great source of Vitamin C. Vitamin E, B1, B3, B6, B9, Magnesium, Potassium, and Manganese are also found in butternut squash. In terms of calories, there are only 82 per cup, but you get 7g of Fiber, which is so important for healthy digestion.

If you want to read more about the health benefits, you can read more at Healthline. So, aside from the delicious flavor, you can see how good for you butternut squash is!

How to Peel and Cut Butternut Squash

Butternut squash can be intimidating given it’s size and shape. However, it’s quite easy to prepare with just a bit of arm muscle. The skin is very thin, so you can simply take a peeler to remove it. I find that a Y-Peeler works easiest on this large surface. You will want to probably peel 2 layers off though to remove the entire skin and get to the darker squash flesh below.

Y-Peeler peeling butternut squash on counter for Butternut Squash and Chicken with Shallots.

Once you have it peeled, gently cut off the step tip of the more narrow end of the squash. Squash is very hard and can be tricky to cut through, so make sure that you have a very sharp knife and a steady cutting board. Then to cube it, an easy way is to cut off discs and then cube the dics.

Start the knife into the top of the squash and once it has start to cut through, you can place one hand on the top of the knife (the other hand is holding the knife handle) and then rock the knife to cut through the squash.

Butternut squash on cutting board, cut into round discs and then cubed for Butternut Squash and Chicken with Shallots.

For the large end of the squash, that’s where all of the seeds reside. You can cut that in half and then scrape out the seeds. Once cleaned out, you can cube that end as well.

How to Store Butternut Squash

Butternut squash can be stored at room temperature for up to 3-4 weeks before peeling it and cutting it. Once the butternut squash is peeled and cut into the desired shape pieces, place it in a sealed container in the fridge for up to 4-5 days before cooking it. You can also roast it or pan-cook it and then store it in the fridge for 5 days in a sealed container.

Ways to Use Butternut Squash

One of the easiest ways to use it is making roasted butternut squash. Just toss the squash cubes on a sheet pan/baking sheet in a little olive oil, salt, and pepper and roast 400 F degrees for 20-30 minutes until they are fork-tender. From there, you can puree them into soup with a touch of chicken broth or stock, milk, or cream and maybe an herb, such as fresh thyme or sage or oregano.

You can incorporate them into pasta or gnocchi. Or just enjoy them as it, adding them to salads, rice, skillet dinners, tacos, and so much more! My favorite butternut squash recipe is to cook them with the pan chicken so they absorb all of the delicious flavors.