Stuffed butternut squash

Vegan stuffed butternut squash with farro and chickpeas on a serving dish.

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5 from 1 vote

Easy vegan thanksgiving or holiday roast. Made with farro, chickpeas, kale and mushrooms.

Prep Time20

Cook Time1 10

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Mediterranean

Servings:

Calories: 251kcal

Author: Maria

Ingredients

1 large butternut squash
½ cup pearled farro or your grain of choice
1½ cups vegetable broth
5 fresh sage leaves or 1 teaspoon dried sage
5 fresh thyme leaves or 1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 tablespoon vegan butter or oil
16 oz button mushrooms finely chopped
5 cloves garlic minced
1 small red onion diced
1 teaspoon poultry seasoning
16 ounce can of chickpeas drained and rinsed
1 cup of chopped kale
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast optional
Vegan Violife feta cheese to top with optional

Instructions

Roast the squash

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees
Cut your butternut squash in half, lengthwise. Clean out the seeds and guts. Rub a little bit of olive or avocado oil over the squash insides and season with a pinch of salt.
1 large butternut squash
Roast in the oven until it's just fork tender. For a medium butternut squash, this will be about 40-50 minutes. Make sure not to over cook the squash, so that it doesn't just fall apart when we try to stuff it. Once butternut squash is cooked, let it cool for 10 minutes before handling it.

Cook the grain

While the squash is roasting, make the farro or your grain of choice. Directions for instant pot below. If you don't have an instant pot, follow the directions on the farro package on how to cook it on the stove.
Rinse farro and put it in the instant pot with vegetable broth, 3 whole sage leaves and 3 whole thyme leaves. Just set the fresh herbs on top of the farro and water. We will take them out whole once the farro is cooked.
½ cup pearled farro, 1½ cups vegetable broth, 5 fresh sage leaves, 5 fresh thyme leaves
If you don't have whole sage and thyme leaves, just sprinkle in ½ teaspoon each of dried sage and dried thyme.
Cook farro on high pressure for 7 minutes. Let it naturally release for another 7 minutes, then quick release. Remove the whole sage and thyme leaves. Set aside.

Make the filling

Add 1 tablespoon of vegan butter or oil to a large skillet on medium heat.
1 tablespoon vegan butter
Saute the diced onion until translucent, about 3 minutes. Season with a tiny pinch of salt.
1 small red onion
Add the finely chopped mushrooms to the pan and cook until mushrooms start to shrink and extract their liquids, about 5 minutes. Add 4 cloves of minced garlic and sauté for 1 minute.
16 oz button mushrooms, 5 cloves garlic
Add soy sauce, 2 finely chopped fresh sage leaves, 1 teaspoon fresh thyme, poultry seasoning, nutritional yeast, can of rinsed chickpeas, chopped kale and the cooked farro.
1 teaspoon poultry seasoning, 1 cup of chopped kale, 2 tablespoons soy sauce, 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast, 16 ounce can of chickpeas
If you don't have fresh sage and thyme, just use ½ teaspoon each of dried sage and thyme.
Stir well to mix everything together.
Cook for 5-8 minutes or until the kale is wilted. Give it a taste and add more salt or seasonings as needed.
Once you've let the roasted butternut squash rest for 10 minutes, scoop out a little bit of the insides of the squash, but make sure not to scoop all the way to the bottom. Leave a bit of flesh in there.

Assemble

Mix the squash with the farro stuffing. Add the farro stuffing to the insides of the butternut squash halves.
Optional - top with crumbled vegan Violife feta cheese.
Vegan Violife feta cheese to top with
Turn oven down to 350 degrees and put the roast in the oven for another 10-15 minutes to warm everything through.
This tastes really good topped with a little bit of vegan gravy.
Enjoy!

Video

Notes

If you can't find farro, you can use barley. If you're cooking it on the stove, it will just take a little longer. Unless you buy quick cooking barley.

If you can't find pearled farro and you can only find semi-pearled or whole farro, that's ok! You will just need to cook this longer.

Nutrition