It Takes Less Effort To Chop Butternut Squash With This Microwave Hack

You can almost mark your calendar by it. The first hint of a chill in the air and everything from coffee chains to restaurant menus instantly seem to be featuring the flavors of pumpkin and butternut squash. Craving the warmth of these gourds feels almost biological, with an unnameable urge to add them to your grocery cart. If you find yourself scooping up sturdy butternut squash, before you get to cooking it, try microwaving it first to make it softer and easier to cut up.

Butternut squash becomes tantalizing, sweet, and caramelized with cooking, but in its raw state it can be downright tricky to work with. The exterior has a tendency to be slippery and uneven with an interior that is alarmingly rock-hard. To enjoy its future silky spoils, you really want to remove as much tough skin as possible, and microwaving it first makes it easier to cut into and slice safely. You can buy butternut squash that is already peeled and cubed at the grocery store, but not only will you be paying extra for that convenience, pre-cut squash won't last as long as a whole one.

With visions of Moroccan-spiced roasted butternut squash or a sweet and creamy soup recipe dancing in your head, you may be eager to get to cooking. But, not so fast. Rather than wrestling with your squash, give it a wash, pierce it a few times with a fork to let the steam escape, and give it an uncovered stint on a plate in the microwave. This exercise will soften up the whole equation, letting you make quick work of harvesting all of that flesh. It only takes three to five minutes at full power, or up to 10 minutes if you've picked a really big specimen. This hack also works on a pumpkin, but you may want to cover it in plastic wrap to help soften its much thicker exterior.

Once your butternut squash has warmed and rotated for a spell, give it a thorough chance to cool. This gives you time to prep your other ingredients, whether you are making that sought-after creamy soup or plan to enjoy your butternut squash in other tempting ways like on toast, as a mac and cheese sauce anchor, or in a salad. Once your squash is cool enough to handle, it will feel noticeably softer, more pliable, and ready to yield to your knife. This hack is really about letting the microwave do the heavy lifting before cooking. You get to enjoy the sweet fruits of working smarter, not harder as you transform your prepped squash into the velvety, autumnal stuff of your dreams.