Stuffed Acorn Squash – A Delightful Start to Autumn

This acorn squash is stuffed with vegetables, rice, beef, and a few seasonings. We loved the vegetable medley you were able to taste and the freshness of it. Often stuffed squash has some sort of tomato sauce on it, and while those are delicious, we really enjoyed this flavour change.

I have mixed feelings when fall rolls around. I do love the sunny fall days and slightly cool evenings, the open windows, and fresh air. I love the sweaters and the lattes. I absolutely love the baking and cooking with all things apples, squash, and pumpkins. However, I know what comes after fall here in Ontario. Winter and I are not great friends. I do love some of the food like soups and comfort foods that come with winter though, so there is that to look forward to!

Stuffed Acorn Squash was surprisingly quick to whip together. I cut the` squash in half and drizzled some vegetable or olive oil on the halves. I sprinkled some salt and pepper on the open halves and then flipped them upside down on a baking sheet. (Parchment or tin foil will make clean up easy.) While those were baking at 400 F, I started on the stuffing.

I cooked up some minute rice. You can use whatever you favourite rice is. I used one cup of dry rice. Then I chopped my red pepper, green pepper, and leeks. I used leeks because I grew some in my garden this year and wanted to use them. If you aren’t familiar with a leek, it has some garlic and onion flavour to it. If you don’t have leeks on hand, that is not a problem. Just substitute some chopped onion and garlic.

I had thawed my ground beef already and so I was ready to start frying. I heated my frying pan and added the ground beef, seasoning it with salt and pepper. Once the ground beef was pretty much finished cooking through, I added the vegetables. I also added seasoning salt and Italian seasoning at this point. I fried this all up until the veggies were done cooking. At this point I added the rice, stirred it all together and just fried for a few minutes.

The squash took about 30 minutes to cook. This will depend on how big your squash is and so you may not want to start frying your stuffing quite right away. The squash will stay hot a long time, so no worries if you aren’t quite done the filling when it finishes.

Once my squash was done I took it out and scraped just a bit away from the edges and bottom but made sure to leave enough on the sides so the squash didn’t collapse. I then put my filling inside the squash and topped with cheese. To finish, I popped the baking sheet back in the oven for a bit, just to melt the cheese.

Without fail, when I make stuffed squash I have leftover filling. This however, is not an issue. You may want to have it on the table as the cavities in the squash are not huge and you may feel like you would like to balance out the squash amount with more filling once you are eating. Also, if you have filling leftovers, it makes for a great lunch the next day!

Enjoy! Let me know if you make this!

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Stuffed Acorn Squash

Recipe by trishamartin07Course: MainCuisine: AmericanDifficulty: Easy

Servings

4

servings

Prep time

15

minutes

Cooking time

40

minutes

This acorn squash is stuffed with vegetables, rice, beef, and a few seasonings and is so fresh tasting!

Ingredients

• 1 large acorn squash (substitute medium butternut squash)

• olive or vegetable oil

• salt and pepper

• Filling

• 1 lb ground beef (substitute ground pork or turkey)

• salt and pepper

• 1 leek ( substitute 1 medium onion and 1 clove garlic)

• 1 small green pepper

• 1 small red pepper

• 2 cups frozen corn

• 2 tsp seasoned salt

• 1 tsp Italian seasoning

• 2 cups cooked rice

• 1/2 cup shredded cheese

Directions

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
• Cut squash in half, take out seeds, and season with oil, salt, and pepper. Place face down on a baking sheet and bake for 30 – 60 minutes or until insides are soft.
• Prepare the filling. In a frying pan, fry ground beef until almost cooked through and season with salt and pepper. Add the leeks, peppers, and corn and season everything with seasoning salt and Italian seasoning. Once veggies are soft, about 10-15 minutes, add the rice. Fry for a few minutes longer.
• Once squash is soft, remove from the oven. Scrape the squash down from the sides a bit, but not too much so the squash doesn’t collapse. Fill with the filling. Top with cheese. Put the squash back into the oven until cheese is melted. Enjoy