5 ingredient butternut squash with brown butter hazelnuts, garlic, and thyme. Whether you serve it for a weeknight dinner or the holidays, this cozy side has incredible flavors packed into one simplistic dish.
Happy Day Two of 5 Ingredient Thanksgiving Sides Recipe Week! Incase you missed yesterday's post, we kicked off the week with the most incredible Brussels sprouts recipe with tahini, thyme, and dates that comes together in just 20 minutes! There is also a giveaway for my favorite brand of tahini (Soom!) on my Instagram feed, which you can enter up until 5pm EST today.
Today's recipe I'm equally (if not more) excited for. We're adding a new whole dimension to everyone's favorite good-for-you gourd and giving it the royal treatment—with butter.
Butter in most applications is good (Julia Child can confirm), but brown butter is better. Worlds better. Cooking the butter until the milk solids brown and become caramelized gives the butter a toasted, nutty flavor and unrivaled complexity. A general rule of thumb: the deeper the color, the deeper the flavor.
For this side, the sultry signature flavor of brown butter gets an aromatic lift from garlic and fragrant upgrade from fresh thyme. Adding hazelnuts to the mix helps the dish take on even more nutty goodness, which compliments the honeyed sweetness of squash like a dream.
You could also use fresh sage in this recipe in place of thyme, or pecans in place of hazelnuts, if you already have either one on hand. 
Butternut squash is brimming with eye-healthy vitamin A, and an excellent source of immune-supporting vitamin C. It also boasts an army of B vitamins plus a decent punch of potassium. What's not to love here?
Hazelnuts add heart-healthy unsaturated fats plus magnesium (an often overlooked mineral that helps manage blood pressure) to the mix. 
I hope you add this incredibly flavorful side to your holiday spread this season, or simply serve it alongside your protein of choice for dinner this week. With minimal ingredients and maximum enjoyment, It's guaranteed to become a fall family-favorite.
5 Ingredient Butternut Squash with Brown Butter Hazelnuts
Ingredients
- 1 medium butternut squash peeled, seeded, cut into 1½-inch pieces
- 1 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
- ½ tsp. kosher salt
- ¼ tsp. freshly ground black pepper
- 2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
- 3 garlic cloves minced
- 1 tsp. fresh chopped thyme
- ¼ cup hazelnuts roughly chopped
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425°F. Arrange squash on a baking sheet and toss with oil, salt, and pepper. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, tossing every 15 minutes to prevent burning.
- Melt butter in a medium skillet over medium heat. Cook until butter becomes dark amber and gives off a nutty aroma, stirring often, about 3 minutes, and be careful not to let it burn. Add garlic, thyme, and hazelnuts; cook for 30 seconds, stirring continuously; pull mixture off heat.
- Arrange squash on a serving platter or in a bowl. Spoon brown butter hazelnut mixture evenly overtop.
dianne
Fixed income and high grocery store prices have taught me to look for and try recipes that pair with whatever I found at the store on a great sale. Today it was acorn squash, The extra bonus, aside from its price of $.99 was that it was cubed 🙂 So home I came to scour this sweet girl's collection of recipes and voila here is the one with all the other ingredients I had on hand (save the nuts), As a special bonus I had fresh thyme and fresh sage still looking very lively in the herb garden, and also some home grown garlic which for whatever reason was the best ever garlic this year.. End result? Perfecto.
Cher
Could this be modified for a crock pot in order to bring to a pot luck? Or would it be good reheated in the microwave the next day?