You know this thing the kids say these days – “pics or it didn’t happen”? On Planet Byn it’s like “blog or you didn’t eat it”. I swear, if I don’t blog about something I made, even if I LOVED it, I will promptly forget that it ever existed. I have made this pasta dish three Falls in a row, and somehow it’s never made it into a post, but this grave injustice is being rectified as of now.

This recipe starts with a basic white sauce, which then gets spiked with fresh sage, pureed butternut squash, lots of parmesan, and a bit of cheddar. It’s thick, creamy, earthy from the sage, and 100% delicious. The original recipe has you toss cooked rigatoni with the sauce, and then bake it with more cheddar on top, but when I did that last year I found that it wasn’t as nearly as creamy after baking, so I’ve modified the instructions just a bit below.

The first couple of times I made this I roasted and pureed an entire butternut squash, and froze what I didn’t need for this recipe. Seeing as how I just located last year’s leftover puree in a freezer burn covered corner of my freezer, I’ve also modified the recipe so you can just roast what you need (i.e. buy one of those little packages of squash chunks at the grocery store instead of buying a whole squash).

I’m so happy to add this to my archives. See you in 2015, rigatoni!

Cheesy Butternut Squash Rigatoni

Source: slightly adapted from Simply Scratch

Yield: about 3-4 servings

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups diced butternut squash (about 1/2″ chunks)

1 tsp olive oil

1 tbsp butter

1/4 cup finely chopped onion

1 clove garlic, grated with a microplane grater

4-5 sage leaves, finely chopped

1 1/2 tbsp flour

1 1/2 tbsp butter

1/2 cup chicken stock

3/4 cup half & half cream (I actually used equal amounts half & half + 2% milk)

1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

2 tbsp grated cheddar cheese

+ cooked rigatoni

Directions

1. First up, you need to make your butternut squash puree, so preheat the oven to 400 and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Toss the butternut squash with the olive oil and a bit of salt and pepper, and roast until soft, about 30 minutes, turning halfway through. Add to a food processor, and process until smooth.
2. In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat, and add the onion and garlic. Saute for about 5 minutes until the onion is soft, then add the sage and saute for a minute.
3. Add the additional butter, and once it melts, add the flour. Stir for a minute then whisk in the chicken stock and cream. Bring to a bubble, and once thickened, reduce the heat to medium low, and stir in the butternut squash puree and cheeses. Taste and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. The sauce will be quite thick and deliciously creamy.
4. Serve with cooked rigatoni. If you have leftover sauce, store separately from pasta, and reheat over low heat.