It’s the season of the gourddddsssssss! I love this time of year for so many reasons, but especially for all the yummy, colorful vegetables you can find at the farmers market and grocery store.
I’m a big fan of winter squash, especially the hearty, sweet, oddly shaped … butternut squash. It’s not as intimidating as it looks to cook with either and it’s a great thing to get into your diet based on all its health benefits.
- High levels of vitamin C
- Boasts vitamin E, K and B vitamins
- A great source of minerals-magnesium, iron, calcium, zinc
- Known for anti-inflammatory properties and antioxidants
- Excellent source of dietary fiber
I’ve been making all sorts of things lately with butternut squash, from a vegan stuffing (I’m testing out for Thanksgiving), to pasta sauce, to this amazing, gluten free, cashew cheese vegetable pizza. It’s bursting with flavor, yet it’s relatively easy to make.
You just need a skillet, some veggies and soaked cashews. The rest is left to sautéing, baking the butternut squash and blending the cashew cheese. You can do that, right?!
Here’s what you’ll need for this hearty Butternut Squash Skillet Pizza!
Pizza Ingredients:
1 pkg of brown rice tortillas
3 cups butternut squash (cubed)
2 cups arugula
1.5 cups mushrooms (portobello or shiitake)
1 small onion (1 cup, white)
Seasoning ingredients:
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. pink himalayan salt
2 tsp. sage (finely chopped)
2 tsp. rosemary (finely chopped)
Cashew Cheese Ingredients:
1 cup cashews (soaked in water for 4-6 hours)
1 & 1/2 Tbsp. of nutritional yeast
the juice of 1/2 to 1 lemon
2 Tbsp. filtered water
1 small garlic clove
dash of pink himalayan sea salt (to taste)
- First step is to prep your butternut squash. Slice and cube one butternut squash (whatever amount you get out of it will work) around 3 cups. Cut the top and the bottom off first. Then hold the squash vertically and slice the skin off, or use a vegetable peeler, and go all the way around the squash until the skin is off. Then cut the squash in half, scoop out the seeds, then slice each half into long vertical slices, then cut vertical slices horizontally into cubes.
- Finely chop your sage and rosemary.
- In a large mixing bowl, take your cubed butternut squash, olive oil, salt and herbs and toss everything together until the squash is lightly coated.
- Spread the mixture out evenly onto a baking sheet and roast 30 to 45 minutes, on 350 degrees until the squash is tender and lightly browned.
- While the squash is baking, prepare your veggies: slice your mushrooms and onion. Peel your garlic and then start on your cashew cheese.
- Drain the liquid off the cashews first, then give them a quick rinse under cold water. Put the cashews in a blender, or food processor, along with the rest of the “cheese” ingredients and blend until smooth. *This is seasoned to taste. Start with 1/2 of a lemon and 1/2 tsp. of salt. Taste it. Then use the entire lemon and add 1/4 tsp. of salt, if you think it needs more flavor. Cheese should be slightly thick, but creamy. Set the cheese aside.
- When the squash is almost done cooking (or has 5 minutes left to cook), start sautéing your veggies. Grab a skillet and drizzle a little olive oil in the pan, let it warm, then add in your sliced onion. Sauté the onion until it’s translucent, then add in your mushrooms. **Sprinkle 1 tsp. of sea salt over the mixture to add some flavor. You can also add in some additional sage and rosemary if you’d like.
- Sauté the onions and mushrooms for a few minutes, until they start to get tender then, at the very end, add in your arugula. You want the arugula to stay somewhat firm, so don’t overcook. After a few minutes of sautéing the arugula, take the skillet off the stove.
- Your squash will be ready by now, so remove it from the oven, let it cool slightly then add it to your mushrooms and onion in the skillet and gently stir it.
- Last step, warm up your tortilla. I like these Food for Life Brown Rice Tortillas. They are gluten free and relatively natural (they do have a thickener added in), but it provides for a nice, crisp pizza crust. Just warm up another skillet greased with olive oil. Put the tortilla in the pan and let it cook for a few minutes, then flip it over and cook it for a few more minutes until desired crispness.
- Take your warmed tortilla and spread a generous portion of the cashew cheese onto the entire tortilla, then take half of your veggie mixture and put it on top of the cheese.
You’ll get two large tortilla pizzas out of this using a generous amount of the squash mixture. If you want to use less of the mixture, you’ll be able to make more pizzas.
You can cut it into fourths and dinner is served!
This pizza is so hearty, only two to three slices will fill you up!
I really tried to balance out the flavors in this dish so that it stayed on the savory side. The cashew cheese is so creamy with just a hint of garlic … it really provides for amazing flavor when mixed in with the earthy herbs found in the sage and rosemary veggies, plus the slight bitterness of the arugula. Really good stuff!
A perfect, hearty dish that is suited for the season.
Happy eating!
**Note ~ if you don’t want to mess with cutting fresh squash, try frozen. Costco has an organic bag of butternut squash. It is all natural, nothing added to it. Frozen veggies are the next best option to fresh, because it’s picked and preserved at its peak ripeness.
