Butternut Squash Soup
This is the absolute BEST Butternut Squash Soup! It’s easy to make, creamy, and delicious, without actually being loaded up with heavy cream. The way the soup is made allows the incredible natural flavor of the roasted butternut squash to really shine through.

It’s easy to make soup taste good by adding lots of fat or added sugar, but I wanted to make a healthy version of Butternut Squash Soup that’s truly delicious without those additions. And goodness this is a success! The squash is the primary ingredient, with only a few supporting players: onion, butter or olive oil for softening the onion, salt, pepper, a touch of cinnamon, and chicken or vegetable stock.
Why This Recipe Is The Best
Roasting = the biggest secret of all – For the best soup, we’ll be using Roasted Butternut Squash. Why? Because roasting caramelizes and intensifies the natural sweetness and flavor, and roasting cubes in particular maximizes the amount of surface area for that to happen. You just can’t get the same effect if you simmer the cubes in the broth.
Minimal ingredients but incredible flavor – The five main ingredients you’ll need are onion, chicken or vegetable stock, butter or olive oil (a cooking fat of your choice), cinnamon, and roasted butternut squash. It’s an elegant soup that is simple but flavorful.
Incredibly creamy, without dairy – While you can add a drizzle of heavy cream or coconut cream on top to make it pretty, this soup is made without dairy entirely. It truly does not need it.
Intense flavor, and not watery – Roasting the squash first cooks out a lot of its water and intensifies the flavor.
No added sugar or sweetness – You’d be surprised how many recipes and restaurant versions call for adding sugar, which is an easy way to make things taste good, but totally unnecessary here. We will get a natural sweetness from roasting.
Batch friendly – What I do when I make roasted butternut squash cubes is make a double batch, one for eating as a vegetable side or in a salad, and one batch for this soup. You can even keep the cubes in the freezer if you don’t want to make this right away.

Tips for Best Results
Pick a good butternut squash – Look for a squash that has a dark beige color and a very firm texture. If it’s starting to feel soft or if it has a lot of dings in it, pick a different one. You also want the stem to be firmly intact instead of fallen off, and ideally you want the heaviest squash for its size, which indicates more moisture inside.
Roast the squash in small pieces – I know you can roast the squash whole, but the downside of this is you don’t get to caramelize much surface area. That caramelization is what makes the butternut squash soup taste so amazing! So take the time to cut those cubes so you maximize browning and flavor.
Step by Step Overview:
Soften the aromatics
In a large soup pot, combined butter or olive oil (or your fat of choice), chopped yellow onion, salt, and pepper:

Cook for about 10 minutes, until the onion is soft:

Add the Roasted Squash Cubes
Next you’ll want to add Roasted Butternut Squash. If you’re doing this now, follow the instructions in the post for how to roast it until caramelized and soft, but the beauty of this recipe is that you can use previously roasted butternut squash. This is usually what I do. What I will do is make big batches at once, serving part of the batch as a side dish for dinner, then keeping the remaining squash cubes in the fridge or freezer for this recipe. Then you can quickly make a batch of this soup with the leftovers.

Also, if you’ve never cut one before, here’s my visual guide for How to Cut Butternut Squash. That will show you how to cut uniform pieces.
Add the roasted squash cubes to the pot along with some ground cinnamon:

Stir for a couple minutes until the cinnamon is fragrant. This really enhances the flavor and gives the dish a great autumn or winter feel.
Add the stock
Add either chicken stock or vegetable stock to the pot:

Personally I like chicken stock more, but if you want to keep things vegetarian, a vegetable stock will suffice.
Bring the soup to a boil, and simmer for 2 minutes. You’re really just heating up the liquid, rather than cooking.
Puree until smooth
In order to get the texture silky smooth, you need to blend the soup well. You can either do this in the pot with an immersion blender (affiliate), or let the soup cool slightly and blend in a blender:

Why I like the blender more: The blender is a little more annoying than the immersion blender, but I find it makes for a MUCH smoother end result, so I prefer it.

How to Serve
The butternut squash soup is truly fantastic on its own, but you can add a touch of heavy cream or coconut cream for extra richness, and toasted pumpkin seeds for a little bit of crunch, if desired. I add these when I’m serving company, but most of the time when I’m just making this for eating on a weekday, I don’t bother.
I love serving the soup with these Easy Drop Biscuits, Homemade Brioche Bread, or even my favorite Homemade Cornbread.
For more of my favorite cozy recipes, next try Creamy Tomato Bisque, Potato Gratin, Cheesy Lasagna Soup, or Shepherd’s Pie. Enjoy!
Recipe Tips and FAQ:
The soup will keep in the refrigerator for up to 7 days, but I find that the flavor starts going downhill after 3 or 4 days. Make sure to store in an airtight container so the soup doesn’t absorb off flavors from the fridge.
Yes, this freezes great. Store for up to 2 months in an airtight container. Thaw in the fridge the night before you want to serve again.
In the microwave or on the stovetop. In the microwave, heat in 15 second intervals until warmed through. On the stovetop, heat over medium for about 5 minutes, until warmed through.
Yes, the soup can be completely made and stored in the fridge a day or two before you want to serve it. It can also be frozen.
Substitution Ideas
Squash variations – You can take this Roasted Acorn Squash and swap it in for the butternut. Buttercup and kabocha varieties are also great options. You can also swap in Roasted Carrots.
Spices – I do think it’s nice to add cinnamon here, but you could also try a little bit of clove, nutmeg, or allspice.
Onion – You can substitute other options like shallot or leek with delicious results, but those are pricier ingredients.
Did you enjoy the recipe? Please leave a 5-star rating in the recipe card below and/or a review in the comments section further down the page. Or, follow me on Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest!

Butternut Squash Soup
Ingredients
- 3 lb roasted butternut squash*
- 2 tbsp butter or olive oil, for dairy free option
- 1.5 cups chopped yellow onion
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/8 tsp black pepper
- 1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
- 6 cups vegetable or chicken stock**
- drizzle of heavy cream optional, for garnish
- toasted pumpkin seeds optional, for garnish
Instructions
- Plan ahead: You will need Roasted Butternut Squash cubes for this recipe. As stated in the blog post, you can either make them now, or use leftovers. If making them now, follow the instructions in that post and get the squash in the oven before you start sauteing the onion and such for this soup.
- Melt the butter in a large pot over medium heat, then add the onion, salt, and pepper, and cook for 10 minutes, until the onions are soft.
- Add the Roasted Butternut Squash cubes and cinnamon, and stir for 2 minutes, until the cinnamon smells fragrant.
- Add the stock, bring the liquid to a boil over high heat, then reduce to a simmer. Cook for 2 minutes at a simmer.
- Puree everything together, either using an immersion blender, or by cooling the soup slightly and blending in a blender (you will likely need to do this in batches).
- Taste, and see if it needs more salt or pepper.
- Serve as is, or with a drizzle of heavy cream and a few pumpkin seeds, if desired. Enjoy!
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition is estimated using a food database and is only intended to be used as a guideline for informational purposes.
Post updated in August 2021. Originally published November 2015.
95 Comments on “Butternut Squash Soup”
This soup is delicious! I will definitely be making it again.
Thank you for another great recipe!
Tasted amazing and was simple and easy to make!
Hi, I only have 1lb of squash :-/ but really want to make soup with it. What would your recommendation be for how much of the other ingredients to add?
Thank you!
Use the slider in the recipe box to help you scale ingredients.
This really is the Best Butternut Squash Soup recipe! We loved it, super simple and delicious.
Fantastic recipe! First time ever making soup and it turned out amazing. I didn’t have fresh sage so i put a pinch of powdered, and a bit extra cayenne… SO yummy! Will definitely be making again 🙂
Yummy. First time making squash anything. Very easy to make Roasted squash as directed. Used both cinnamon and a couple of dashes of nutmeg. Topped with a dab of sour cream.
Do I need to use vegetable broth? Can’t I just do it with water?
Well I roasted the butternut squash and added them to the sauteed onions. I put the spices on the squash just before roasting them. I added salt and pepper, nutmeg and cardamom and cinnamon. The taste was great.
I used the frozen butternut squash cubes from Costco; ran them under warm water to separate, then into the oven. The extra moisture as they roasted kept them from getting too dry. Added nutmeg, cinnamon and s, p and white pepper. A little dash of light sour cream at the very end really added depth. Delicious!
Thank you for sharing! Helpful for those who want to use frozen. I’ll test it out too.
Very tasty soup! I had a garnish thought, since you mention pumpkin seeds: A butternut squash comes loaded with. . .roastable squash seeds! (I’m actually eating the last of the soup I made, with some roasted pumpkin seeds from a more recently cooked pumpkin. The seeds from the squash in the soup are long gone!)
Any sort of winter squash (butternut, acorn, pumpkin, etc.) yields a bunch of yummy seeds that you can roast and use for just about anything (including snacking!)
Used 2# squash that had been preserved in the freezer and 3 cups broth. Made a very nice viscous soup. Living alone made a nice batch that will last the week and the flavor with 1/8 tsp cinamon was on par. Plan to add half and half at serving. YUM
I used 4 lbs of squash instead of 3 and doubled the salt and pepper. I made it vegan by using the vegetable broth and olive oil. I was so easy and absolutely delicious and I don’t give 5 stars often.
When a healthy recipe meets with a delicate taste. The best of both worlds.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/c8Y2rYypxMcSMKr96
I roast the squash then cool it. I then purée it in my Ninja blender to get it really smooth. I do this before I heat it with the broth. So much easier and it tastes the same!
I used 1/2 onion, 4 cloves garlic, Carton of Pacific organic vegetable broth, and topped with optional paprika.
I served it with naan bread (4c flour, 1T each salt, sugar, yeast, 1 1/2 c warm water, risen 2 hrs. Rolled in 16 small flats, cooked 1 min each side in skillet) cooked with coconut oil and rosemary. I have 8 kids. They all loved it! No leftovers at all.