7 Winter Squash & How to Use Them

+ recipe for Kale Salad with Roasted Delicata Squash, Pomegranate & Pumpkin Seeds

This is the exciting time of year when all the gorgeous winter squash start to show up at the market, almost startling in their variety of shapes, sizes and autumnal colors.  Yes, they make nice porch decorations, but they are culinary and nutritional wonders too.

From a nutritional POV, what you see when you look at the rich orange-yellow color inside a squash is beta carotene, an antioxidant (and form of vitamin A) which imparts that hue to food. One cup of cubed butternut squash gives you more than four times the daily value of vitamin A. It is also an excellent source of vitamin C and fiber, a good source of magnesium and potassium, and has significant amounts of iron and calcium.

Cooking with winter squash is a delicious adventure, as each variety has its own unique flavor and characteristics. Choosing between them can be kind of overwhelming if you don’t know your butternuts from your kabochas, so I thought it would be helpful to provide some winter squash basics here, digging into 7 of the most common varieties---the types I see most often in recipes and in the grocery store.