18 Reasons: Squash Therapy

Winter squash is one of the great pleasures of cold-weather cooking, but it can also be intimidating: hard to cut, slow to cook, and easy to turn into something overly sweet, bland, or one-note. In this hands-on class, we’ll begin with a guided taste test of several winter squash varieties, including delicata, acorn, honeynut, butternut, and kabocha. You’ll learn how they differ in sweetness, starchiness, moisture, texture, and best uses. Then we’ll cook a menu that shows winter squash at its best: bright and hearty in salad, sweet-tart in panzanella, rich and savory in custard, and deeply caramelized in a kabocha miso caramel sauce. Along the way, you’ll learn how to safely break down, roast, season, and balance winter squash in dishes that go far beyond soup and pie.