RECIPE: How to Roast Kabocha Squash Whole

I LOVE roasted sunshine kabocha squash - it is smooth, sweet, and creamy - but the larger ones are very hard to cut in half.  My friend roasts butternut squash whole so I decided to try roasting kabocha whole and it worked perfectly!

Sunshine kabocha is sort of squat, deep orange, and has a dark green star on the blossom end.  I apologize for the crummy photo of the star below but it's the only one I have!  The stem end is thick and also hard to cut through.  Sunshine doesn't keep well, so I roast it, puree it and freeze it.  Green kabocha isn't as sweet as sunshine, but it keeps longer and gets sweeter as it sits. 

How to Roast Kabocha Squash Whole

On the left: sunshine kabocha squash green star.  On the right: roasted sunshine kabocha puree.

 

INSTRUCTIONS

Preheat oven to 425F.

WASH the outside of the squash!  Even though you won't be eating the skin, if there is dirt on it it will enter the flesh when you cut it open.

Arrange the squash on a baking pan - no need to pierce them - and roast until the outside is blistered and a knife can be easily inserted through the flesh.  No, they will not explode if you don't pierce them.  If anything, they will IMplode.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the baking pan.

Whole roasted sunshine kabocha squash

Remove the skin from the top half and discard it.  

In the photo below, I have my salad spinner bowl in the sink on the right, and I'm discarding skin and seeds into that bowl so we can put them out for the deer.  We don't put the seeds in our compost because they survive, and we don't put them in the trash because they attract bears.  We toss them in the forest behind our house and hope the deer find them before the bears do.

Remove the skin from the top half.

Remove the flesh from the top and transfer it to a food processor.  Take care to leave the seeds behind! 

Remove the flesh from the top exposing the seeds.

Remove the seeds and discard them.  Some people roast them but I've never had success with that. 

Remove the seeds.

Scrape the flesh from the remaining skin and transfer to the food processor.  

Remove the flesh from the bottom half.  A flat edge ice cream spoon is best for this.

Remove as much flesh as possible!

Process until smooth and creamy.  

I've never tried to do this in a blender.  I'm not sure it would work because the flesh is fairly dense and it might cause cavitation.  If you try it, please LMK whether it works!

Sunshine kabocha before and after being pureed in my food processor.

Transfer to a glass jar and refrigerate or freeze until needed.  

 

I use this to make pumpkin lattes, pumpkin soup, pumpkin mac and cheese, pumpkin martinis (recipe coming soon), and I'm going to attempt a pumpkin roll.