It is the very beginning of summer in Dallas, and it is squash planting season! Granted, the results of our labors of love and toil won’t show up until later in the Fall. Gardening taught me a virtue which I didn’t possess for many decades: Patience. It has also taught me valuable lessons on how to handle disappointment and how to hope for a better and brighter growing season. If only we really listened to animals and Nature, we would be SO much better off. Do you agree?
As I write about this, I wonder how recipes are “born”. This is how it probably unfolds…
There is a kitchen “accident”, or a creative cook decides to try something new and voila! a delicious dish gets created. Someone sees this recipe in a cookbook or on some other media or eats the dish at the original creator’s home. The viewers/guests modify the recipe to suit their tastes. Then others come along and modify it for their tastes. A reader, reading this recipe, will make it his or her own further changes. All in all, we have several delicious variations through kitchen experiments. I find this concept so cool!
Vegan Stuffed Acorn Squash
Acorn Squash
This Stuffed Acorn Squash recipe is a regular in my house. I first had it a few years ago when our dear friends Donna and Scott invited us over to their home. Donna served this squash with kale, white quinoa, cranberries and garbanzo beans. It was totally delicious!
I’ve modified the recipe to include red bell peppers, tri-colored quinoa (cooked in vegetable broth, which takes the taste up by several notches!), garbanzo beans, onions, garlic, ginger, jalapenos (an Indian gal must show her true colors, right?!) with a touch of fresh home-grown parsley.
It feels like this recipe has several steps. And it does. But it is SO easy to make because of how versatile roasted squashes are. You can roast the acorn squash one day and make the filling on another day. Put them all together when you are getting ready to eat your meal. The stuffed acorn squash can be quick baked to warm it up. Once baked the acorn squash will keep in the refrigerator for about 5 days. This lends for a great plan-ahead meal.
You can roast the acorn squash and use it in a variety of ways – to add to your sandwiches, over pasta, into a salad, or to roll it into a taco. You can even add it into your soup for that deliciously sweet flavor. But do try eating it with stuffing. You’ll love it. I guarantee it.
Acorn Squash Stuffing Ideas
Most of the time, I am using leftovers from my refrigerator to stuff the acorn squash. Here are some other recipes that you can use the “stuff” the baked acorn squash.
- Cabbage Methi Sabzi
- Tabbouli / Tabouli / Tabbouleh Salad (Parsley Salad)
- Delish Bell Pepper Eggplant Sauté
- Banana Potato Sauté
- Forbidden Rice Stir Fry
- Zesty Carrot Garbanzo Usli
Vegan Stuffed Acorn Squash
If all the varieties of squashes had a competition on who’s the healthiest, acorn squash will be declared as the winner. It offers more folate, calcium, magnesium and potassium than butternut, hubbard and spaghetti squash. The nutrients in the stuffing offer generous amounts of protein (in the form of quinoa and garbanzo beans) and the addition of veggies, garlic, onion and ginger make this dish rich in antioxidants, which can help to protect against arthritis, heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, and certain cancers.
Baked Recipes
If you love baked recipes, here are a few that we can offer you:
- Crunchy Baked Plantain Chips
- Vegan, Spicy Baked Eggplant
- Baked Okra
- Baked Spicy Chicken Curry
- Sowmya’s Baked Salmon
- Baked Raw Banana Nuggets
- Baked Eggplant
- Zucchini Banana Bread
- Spiced Purple Sweet Potato-Cauliflower Bake
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Vegan Stuffed Acorn Squash
Ingredients
Roasted Acorn Squash
- 1 Acorn Squash
- 1 Teaspoon Olive Oil
- 1/4 Teaspoon Sea Salt
- 1/4 Teaspoon Black Pepper - Freshly ground
Filling
- 1/4 Cup Quinoa - Makes for 3 tablespoons of cooked quinoa. I use a mix of black, red and white quinoa
- 1/2 Cup Vegetable Broth - Or water
- 1 Teaspoon Olive Oil
- 1 Teaspoon Ginger - Freshly grated
- 1 Teaspoon Garlic - Minced
- 1 Jalapeno - Or to taste
- 1/4 Teaspoon Sea Salt - Or to taste
- 1 Cup Onion - Red, Finely chopped
- 1 Cup Red Bell Peppers - Finely chopped
- 1/4 Cup Garbanzo Beans - Cooked, drained. I have use canned
- 2 Teaspoon Parsley - Fresh, finely chopped
Instructions
Roasted Acorn Squash
- Cut Acorn Squash lengthwise (from stem to tip) using a strong knife. Discard the seeds in the compost or roast them. You can leave the stem or remove.
- Set the acorn squash cut side up. Add olive oil into the hollow inside (that looks like a cup). Using a silicone brush or your fingers, distribute the oil all over the cut surfaces.
- Sprinkle salt and pepper all over the cut edges and the hollow insides.
- Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 minutes. Place the acorn squash in a baking tray (no parchment paper needed - save the planet!) and bake at 450 degrees for 40 minutes. Remove and test by inserting a fork into the flesh, especially around the edges to make sure every part is roasted. Otherwise, bake for an additional 10 minutes.
- Remove the baked acorn squash and set aside. You can serve this immediately, or cool and refrigerate for up to 5 days.
Stuffing
- While the acorn squash is baking, wash quinoa. Add vegetable broth (or water) and cook until done. Fluff with a fork.
- While the quinoa is cooking, heat oil in a pan. Add ginger, garlic and jalapeno and sauté until they brown lightly.
- Add onions and sauté for 2-3 minutes.
- Add finely chopped red bell peppers and salt and stir fry for 2 minutes.
- Wash and drain canned garbanzo beans. You can also soak the dry garbanzos for 8-12 hours and cook them. Get all your stuffing portions prepped: cooked and fluffed quinoa, garbanzo beans and prepped veggies. In a bowl, mix cooked quinoa, stir fried vegetables and garbanzo beans. Mix well and taste for salt.
Assembling Vegan Stuffed Acorn Squash
- Add stuffing into the "cups" of the baked acorn squash. Sprinkle finely chopped parsley and serve.
- To eat, use a serrated spoon so you can get the flesh of the acorn squash along with the stuffing. Yum!
Dear Healthy Indian, I love your recipes and articles! I think they are so appropriate for our lives/lifestyles/health at this time, particularly! I have a comment, though. Not for publication, unless you want to, but more fyi. I am a vegetarian – for my health, solely – and the main reason is that my blood type is A. (I would never have been able to have my daughter had I not given up meat … which was causing my body to be totally imbalanced.) BUT not all people are A blood type! O blood type, for example, the most common blood type, does need red meat to have optimal health. Also, for me, the nightshade vegetables are not good. And Indian food – as well as a lot of other cuisines – tend to use a lot of nightshades! I almost never eat potatoes; black-eyed peas or adzuki beans or pinto beans are much better for me than garbanzos! Peppers – only red sweet ones – although I love spicy foods and will use sweet chili powder – or “curry powder” – or make my own masala. Cabbage doesn’t work well for me … sigh. So, my “comment” or suggestion is: look into the “Eat Right 4 Your Type” diet? Just fyi. That’s not going to stop me from trying your recipes and loving them, even if I do modify them some.
My son-in-law is Gujarati, Hindu, and his mother is a strict vegetarian (will do dairy) and a good cook!! I love to visit my daughter (A-type) and enjoy Meena’s food. Meena is B. Ashish is O. My daughter is A – and I’m sure my grandchildren are A. What a group!!!
Anyway – I’ve been wanting to write you this, because I do love your newsletters and recipes. Thank you for this!
(My mother was really into nutrition – and it has stood me in good stead in my life! I’ve written a book: Body Speak: dowsing your body, about nutrition and health …)
Namasté !
Hi Isabell, first off, I’d like to say a big thanks to you, for taking the trouble to write a review. As you can see, I’ve published it verbatim. 🙂 Thanks for your wonderful feedback about our newsletters and recipes. You do have an interesting international mix in the family…so cool!
As for foods, I agree that all of us are different and there is no one-diet-fits-all. Our blog offers many many choices in terms of recipes and ingredients: With or without grains. With or without dairy. With or without nightshades. Wherever possible, we also offer suggestions on how to modify a recipe to embrace it as your own. Once again, thanks for writing.
Wow! somebody finally commented on bloodtype in a cooking blog! I’m 70 yrs old & didn’t find out the source of my problems until I was over 40. Dr. D’Adamo has been largely ignored, but his books are very helpful to many like me. I happen to be allergic to dairy casien, so dairy FATS are fine for me, but buttermilk and sweet milk are no-no’s. I do LOVE some of the nightshades and they don’t bother me (I am bloodtype A+), so I just look at ingred. or substitute when selecting recipes. Indian food is so delish, but we are the ones who must be aware and adjust. Unless the authors are personally affected they are probably not aware of our challenges 🙂
Absolutely! We are all different individuals with different dietary needs. There is no “one-diet-fits-all”. That’s the reason why we offer a plethora of recipes so you can pick whatever your body needs.