Indulge in the ultimate winter comfort with this creamy butternut squash pasta. Whether you’re a fresh pasta enthusiast or prefer dried, this easy-to-make dish is perfect for those cozy nights in. With its velvety sauce and flavorful ingredients, it’s time to elevate your pasta night with this warm and satisfying recipe.

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The Delightful Comfort of Butternut Squash Pasta

Is there anything better in the world than a steaming bowl of creamy pasta on a cold night? I recently started making homemade pasta with a pasta maker I found at a vintage store. Safe to say I am a true fresh pasta convert. This easy butternut squash pasta is a perfect winter comfort with fresh or dried pasta, whatever your preference. It’s warm, creamy, and pretty easy to make.

A Simple Recipe with Easy Preparation

This recipe requires mostly store cupboard ingredients with the addition of a whole butternut. The only prep here is chopping onions garlic and butternut, although the peeled and cubed butternut from the grocery store will work well too. This is the perfect thing to make when you don’t know what to make or are just in need of something new to go along with your familiar pasta night. I use fresh pasta in this recipe but it works equally well with dried. Tagliatelle is best here as it picks up and holds onto the creamy sauce.

This recipe is also a good option if you are looking for something budget-friendly as it utilizes fresh or dried pasta and a few fresh vegetables which are generally easily accessible from most supermarkets throughout the year.

Convenience Option: Using Store-Bought Cubed Butternut

An option here, if you are really pressed for time, is using store-bought cubed butternut. Most grocery stores carry these which reduces the time and energy needed to peel, deseed and cube a butternut. In this recipe, I have used a whole butternut but either option will ensure equally delicious results.

Fresh or Dried: Choosing the Right Pasta

While this recipe calls for fresh pasta (you can find a recipe here) this can just as easily be made with dried pasta. The choice really depends on the amount of time you have on hand and your preferences. If you do have access to fresh pasta, it does as a distinct chewy texture that enhances the overall experience of the dish. Fresh pasta can also be made very thin, which is a great alternative texture to store-bought pasta which is thicker to retain its structure. If fresh pasta is not available, dried pasta will do just as well. It’s really good at retaining its shape and holding onto the creamy sauce.

Regardless of your choice of pasta, this creamy sauce will envelop and coat the pasta creating a really delicious meal.

The Ideal Match: Tagliatelle and Creamy Sauce Perfection

My favourite choice for this dish is tagliatelle, which is a flat and wide shape. The larger surface area allows it to pick up and absorb the sauce, ensuring every bite is filled with velvety flavour. The chewiness of a fresh tagliatelle will also balance the smoothness of the butternut squash sauce.

Savoring the Warmth and Creaminess

There’s something incredibly gratifying about indulging in a warm, creamy bowl of butternut squash pasta on a cold winters night. It’s a dish that warms you from the inside out with a creamy umami-ness and a sauce that’s packed full of vegetables and flavour. Whether you opt for fresh or dried pasta, whole or cubed the butternut squash yourself, this recipe is a celebration of the simple pleasures found in pasta and the cozy comforts of winter cuisine.

Easy Butternut Squash Pasta for a Warming Winter Dinner

Indulge in the ultimate winter comfort with this creamy butternut squash pasta. Whether you're a fresh pasta enthusiast or prefer dried, this easy-to-make dish is perfect for those cozy nights in. With its velvety sauce and flavorful ingredients, it's time to elevate your pasta night with this warm and satisfying recipe.

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Course Dinner, Lunch, Main Course

Servings 4 people

Ingredients

1 medium yellow onion, peeled and finely
3 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
1 butternut squash, peeled and cubed in large chunks
2 tablespoons of olive oil
400 g tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 large carrot sliced
4-5 sprigs of fresh dill
500 g dried tagliatelle
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Instructions

Add the butternut squash and carrots into a medium pot with the lid closed and approximately 1/2 cup of water to steam and cook through until very soft, approximately 20 minutes.
While the butternut squash and carrots are steaming, add the olive oil, onions, and garlic to a large pan and cook until tender, approximately 6-8 minutes.
Add the chickpeas to the pan and cook for 3-4 minutes.
Once the butternut and carrot are done, remove them from the pot and add them directly to the pan.
Squash the butternut down into a creamy sauce with a fork. It's ok if it's a bit chunky at this point because we will add some pasta water to this later.
Cook your pasta according to the directions on the box. Towards the end of the pasta cooking, add 1/2 cup of the pasta water to the pan with the sauce and stir vigorously to combine and thicken the sauce. Feel free to add more or less pasta water according to how thick you want the sauce.
Add the pasta directly to the sauce and stir until the pasta is fully coated with the sauce. Finish with sprigs of dill and enjoy!