The Better Homemaking Network

I see a lot of questions about squashes, so I thought I would make a post dedicated to it. I am encouraged to see people who don’t have these foods in their diet normally are willing to figure it all out for their baby. I hope they are also considering eating some themselves! I’ve included the basic ways that we eat squash as a family.

I’ve grown, stored, prepared, and eaten squash of various kinds my entire life, so I speak as an humble authority. They happen to be one of my favorite foods.

The standard procedure to make baby food is just to puree cooked food until smooth, adding water if needed. Following are specific tips on how to cook different types of squash.

Winter squash (with hard skins like pumpkin, acorn, and butternut) you don’t eat the seeds or the skin. You cut them in half, scoop out the seeds, then bake them until soft. We like to put them face down in a microwave dish with a couple spoonfuls of water and cook them that way. Or you can put microwave-safe plastic wrap around the tops and microwave them face up.

Butternut is also good in soup! Peel, halve, seed, and cube them, and toss them into the pot!

Spaghetti squash is a winter squash – you don’t eat the skin or the seeds. However, spaghetti squash tends to stay rather firm. You seed and cook them like other winter squash, then scrape the insides with a fork and it comes out like long strands of yellow spaghetti! It is done when it has a little bite to it (think pasta al dente) and is awesome with a little butter or even with your favorite pasta sauce. Very calorie friendly! I can’t imagine it as baby food but I guess you could do it. I’d overcook it a bit and blend the heck out of it, and even then I would wait until baby can handle some texture.

Pumpkin may have to be broken it into smaller pieces to fit into the oven to bake. Always good as pumpkin pie, of course. Or you can fix it up like a sweet potato with brown sugar and cinnamon. You really should try eating it as a regular squash, either plain or with a little bit of butter – it is fantastic. (I’d only use fresh for this. Canned pumpkin is nearly always hubbard squash – still good but not the same, and definitely distinguishable without the sugar and spice of pie filling.)

Summer squash (like yellow squash, crookneck, and zucchini / courgettes) where you eat the outside, you can eat the whole thing, seeds too! They are technically a fruit. Cool, huh?

Summer squash is entirely edible. Just cut off the stem and flower ends, cut into pieces, and steam them up until soft. For baby food, first let them cool completely in a sieve so they drain more liquid, then blend or process them (seeds and all) and they turn out great. No need to strain. For our family, we quite often cook a big steamer full of yellow squash, zucchini, and sweet onions to go with dinner.

Here is the yellow squash I pureed and froze for baby food. Aren’t they a beautiful color?

Yellow Squash Baby Food Cubes

Zucchini (also known as courgettes) have to be canned with an acid so normally you find it with tomato sauce. You can grate raw zucchini, freeze, and use it for zucchini bread. I actually buy freeze-dried zucchini to toss in pasta sauces and stews during the winter months. I can’t stand the canned stuff because they put tons of salt in it and I don’t always want tomato sauce with them! So fresh is definitely the way to go. Plant a couple of seeds in the garden – the things are nearly impossible to kill – and you can feed the whole block! My grandpa used to say he wishes he could grow half of a zucchini plant! (You actually need two for pollination, though.) As an example, here are the results of my garden a few years ago: The best onion, the best potato (lol), and the best zucchini:

What are your favorite ways of eating squash?