Butternut Squash Soup
This post may contain affiliate links. Read my full disclosure policy.
This creamy butternut squash soup is full of flavor and surprisingly easy — ready in under an hour and pure fall comfort in a bowl.
If you’re looking for a butternut squash soup that’s as easy as it gets, this is it! It starts with my favorite time-saving trick: pre-cut squash cubes from the supermarket. From there, everything goes into one pot to simmer before getting puréed into silky perfection. One important note—please follow the recipe as written. Every ingredient, including the full measures of sugar, salt, and cream, is key to the rich flavor and texture that make this soup so special.
For the finishing touch, you get to choose your own adventure: keep it classic with fresh thyme or give it a different twist with curry powder. Either way, you’ll end up with a bowl that’s warm, comforting, and worth making again and again.
I love this butternut squash soup with crusty bread or buttermilk biscuits, or for a lighter fall meal, alongside my shaved Brussels sprouts salad.
“So good and so easy!”
What You’ll Need To Make Butternut Squash Soup
- Butternut squash & red bell pepper: The squash brings a naturally sweet, nutty flavor and blends into a silky texture, while the pepper adds a gentle sweetness and bright color. Skip frozen squash—it tends to make the soup watery.
- Onion & garlic: The aromatic base that gives the soup its depth right from the start.
- Water & heavy cream: Water keeps the flavors clean and balanced, while a splash of cream at the end makes the soup luxuriously smooth.
- Salt, sugar & thyme or curry powder: Salt pulls everything together, sugar enhances the veggies’ natural sweetness, and your choice of thyme or curry powder sets the flavor tone—to herbal and earthy with thyme, or warm and lightly spicy with curry.
- Jump to the printable recipe for precise measurements
Step-By-Step Instructions
Step 1. Prep the vegetables. Add all of the vegetables, salt, and sugar to a large soup pot, then pour in enough water to cover them.
Step 2. Cook until tender. Bring the pot to a boil, then reduce the heat, cover, and simmer until the vegetables are very tender, about 35 minutes.
Step 3. Purée the soup. Use a hand-held immersion blender (or a standard blender) to blend until silky smooth.
Pro Tip: If using a countertop blender, remove the center cap from the lid and cover the opening with a folded kitchen towel—this lets steam escape and prevents a soup volcano.
Step 4. Add the cream. Pour in the heavy cream and stir until combined.
Step 5. Finish and serve. Bring the soup to a simmer and stir in the fresh thyme (or curry powder). Taste and adjust the seasoning, if necessary. Serve hot, or make ahead—the soup keeps nicely for 3 days in the fridge or can be frozen for longer storage.
Pro Tip: If you want to dress up the soup with a garnish, try pomegranate seeds for a sweet-tart burst, toasted pepitas (pumpkin seeds) for a warm crunch, or homemade croutons for buttery crispness that soaks up the soup in the best way.
More Fall Soups That Warm You from the Inside Out
Butternut Squash Soup
Creamy, flavorful butternut squash soup that’s easy to make and perfect for a cozy fall meal.
Ingredients
- 2½ pounds pre-cut butternut squash (7 to 8 cups, cubed; see note)
- 1 red bell pepper, roughly chopped
- 1 medium yellow onion, roughly chopped
- 3 cloves garlic, smashed and peeled
- 7 cups water
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- ¾ cup heavy cream, plus more for serving
- 1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme (or 1 teaspoon curry powder, for a different flavor profile)
Instructions
- Combine the squash, pepper, onion, garlic, water, salt, and sugar in a large soup pot. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer for 35 minutes
- Using a hand-held immersion blender, purée the soup until silky smooth. (Alternatively, cool the soup slightly, then purée in a blender in batches, making sure to leave the hole in the lid open to allow the steam to escape.) Stir in the heavy cream and bring to a simmer. Mix in the thyme (or curry powder), then taste and adjust seasoning (depending on the sweetness of the vegetables, you may need a touch more sugar). Ladle the soup into bowls, drizzle with more cream if desired, and serve.
- Note: For the best flavor and texture, use fresh butternut squash in this recipe. Frozen squash can release extra water when cooked, which may dilute the soup and make it thinner or less flavorful.
- Make-Ahead/Freezer-Friendly Instructions: The soup can be prepared up to 3 days in advance and stored in the refrigerator in an airtight container. It can also be frozen, without the cream, for up to 3 months. Defrost the soup in the refrigerator for 12 hours and then reheat it on the stovetop over medium heat until hot. Once heated through, add the cream and bring to a simmer before serving.
Pair with
Nutrition Information
Powered by 
- Per serving (6 servings)
- Calories: 217
- Fat: 11 g
- Saturated fat: 7 g
- Carbohydrates: 31 g
- Sugar: 11 g
- Fiber: 5 g
- Protein: 3 g
- Sodium: 1192 mg
- Cholesterol: 34 mg
This website is written and produced for informational purposes only. I am not a certified nutritionist and the nutritional data on this site has not been evaluated or approved by a nutritionist or the Food and Drug Administration. Nutritional information is offered as a courtesy and should not be construed as a guarantee. The data is calculated through an online nutritional calculator, Edamam.com. Although I do my best to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures should be considered estimates only. Varying factors such as product types or brands purchased, natural fluctuations in fresh produce, and the way ingredients are processed change the effective nutritional information in any given recipe. Furthermore, different online calculators provide different results depending on their own nutrition fact sources and algorithms. To obtain the most accurate nutritional information in a given recipe, you should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe, using your preferred nutrition calculator.
Gluten-Free Adaptable Note
To the best of my knowledge, all of the ingredients used in this recipe are gluten-free or widely available in gluten-free versions. There is hidden gluten in many foods; if you're following a gluten-free diet or cooking for someone with gluten allergies, always read the labels of your ingredients to verify that they are gluten-free.
See more recipes:
Comments
Add a Comment
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
This is good, but needs modifications. 1) Cook veggies in vegetable stock, then, using a sieve drain off the stock. [Stock can be reused to make any grain dish. ]2) Dump veggies and one cup of milk (dairy or unflavored nut milk) into food processor 3) Puree and add some dried thyme, salt and white pepper and onion powder 4) Put mixture back into original pan and reheat 5) Serve with some croutons on top. That makes a nice Fall soup. Thank you, Jenn.
This was so easy and yummy! I added a teaspoon of curry and half a cube of chicken stock, which gave it some great extra flavor but I don’t think the base recipe needed it.
Just tried this cuz needed a recipe for a pureed soup for a friend who had oral surgery. So, we gave her 90% of the soup and kept 10 for us – really tasty! I thought that using water instead of a broth would make it less flavorful, but it’s full of flavor 🙂
Jenn, I volunteer in a community kitchen doing meals for shut ins and homeless. We’ve been given a lot of butternut squash so we’d like to use your recipe and will adapt quantities to what we need. Instead of peeling the squash we’d like to roast them. My question is, Would you change anything in your recipe if roasted squash were substituted? Any other suggestions?
Hi Gean, what a nice thing you do! I don’t think you’d need to change anything in the recipe if you roast the squash. It obviously the squash wouldn’t need as much time to soften up in the soup but I’d still cook it for the same amount of time so all of the other flavors/ingredients can cook and meld together. Hope everyone enjoys!
I love Jen’s recipes – but I have to say like others have mentioned this one was a little bland for me, even despite using chicken broth instead of water. I added a sprinkle of ginger and cloves at the end and it helped warm everything up.
Super easy and quick but thought it was a bit bland. Next time I will cook in chicken broth, not water. I added a dash of cayenne and some chicken bouillon and that made a huge difference.
So easy! My family loved it!
Can you make the soup with almond milk instead?
Hi Lorraine, I think you could get away with it, or for more creaminess, full-fat coconut milk would work here. Hope that helps and that you enjoy!
Absolutely my favourite soup to make now, thanks so much for the recipe 😀 I did however change a few little things up On your original recipe. I just added creme fresh instead of cream and it seemed to thicken slightly better than the first time around when I used cream. Added a dash of turmeric and a dash of cumin which gave it a lot more flavour!
As DJ recommended, I added a chopped carrot and stalk of celery plus plenty of spices to this. The biggest problem was how thin the soup ended up with 7 cups of water (I used 4 cups veg broth and 3 cups water). I had to add two boiled and pureed potatoes to thicken the soup up. So I would suggest cutting back the liquids to 4 cups veg broth, and adding a potato to the mix. The quality of the butternut squash also makes a big difference in this soup.
Loved loved loved this recipe! Satisfied my craving for homemade soup! Very easy to make and doesn’t require as many ingredients as the other recipes.