Stuffed Butternut Squash with Curried Barley

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This vegan stuffed butternut squash recipe is perfect for a simple and nutritious mid-week dinner! You can prepare the filling in advance and just whack it in the oven, which will do the rest for you - and before you know it: dinner's ready!

This recipe combines flavoursome curried barley with the naturally sweet notes of butternut squash, which are simply divine teamed together! For a fresh zest, I love adding pomegranate seeds into the curried barley before serving. They add delicious fruity flavour to the dish, which is altogether wholesome.

Half a stuffed butternut squash filled with curried barley and pomegranate seeds on top

For this vegan recipe, I have teamed up with Appletiser - as this butternut squash dish includes one of your five a day and teams up just wonderfully alongside one of their refreshing drinks.

Recipe Notes

I have been loving roasted stuffed butternut squash over the past few months - in many shapes and forms, so it was natural for me to include roasted butternut squash in the recipe! And since trying dried bean mixes for our work lunches, I have had a thing for pearl barley - so you can imagine that I could not combine these two amazing items here.

Ingredients

For the roasted butternut squash:

1 medium size butternut squash, halved and seeds removed
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil - you can also use rape seed oil

For the curried barley filling:

150 g dried pearl barley
1 tablespoon curry powder
½ teaspoon turmeric
¼ teaspoon cumin
¼ teaspoon ginger powder
¼ teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon turmeric
400 ml vegan-friendly vegetable stock

For serving:

a handful of pomegranate seeds (can use frozen, if you like)
10 g chopped, fresh coriander
salt & pepper to taste

How to roast a butternut squash

With regards to roasting your stuffed butternut squash: I prefer to use a little extra virgin olive oil to brush the squash before it goes into the oven, but you could technically create this recipe without the addition of oil, if you swing that way. Simply add a little ovenproof dish with a little water to your oven, so that your squash doesn’t get too dry.

I definitely recommend cutting little slits into your squash before roasting - this helps the squash to roast all the way through easier and avoids the unwanted ‘burnt outer edges & tough inside’ phenomenon.

How to prepare this recipe ahead of time

You can very easily prepare the stuff butternut squash recipe in advance. Simply create the filling for the curried barley up to 3 days in advance and store it in the fridge in an airtight container until you're ready to start your butternut squash.

On the day, simply prepare your butternut squash for roasting then fill it with your curried barley mixture and you're good to go.

This stuffed butternut squash recipe is:

100% vegan
Great as a mid-week dinner
Easy to prepare in advance or to make from scratch
including one of your five a day
Super simple to make
Full of flavour
Easy to prepare ahead of time
Natural and nutritious

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Pro Tip: You can use both fresh as well as frozen pomegranate seeds. I personally always buy a fresh pomegranate & then de-seed it in a bucket of cold water (mainly to avoid the mess, but it's also much easier to de-seed underwater!).

I keep my seeds in a freezer bag because I mostly only use a small amount of them and don't want them to go off and go to waste.

Add the frozen pomegranate on the top right after taking the barley off the stove - the heat of the barley will quickly de-frost your pomegranate seeds!