Grilled Butternut Squash with Honey Maple Glaze
Grilling butternut squash highlights the squash’s natural sweetness while crisping up the outside. Add a honey maple glaze with a little char and you have a delicious squash recipe worth eating all year long.
There are a lot of interesting ways to cook butternut squash; what we like about grilling the squash is how it brings out the squash’s inner sweetness without ending up with a pile of mush.
Tips for Grilling Squash
A few tips when you’re grilling squash. Cutting the squash in half rounds creates a unique final presentation and keeps it from falling through the grate.
If you want the squash to end up as little cubes, either cook it on a grill pan or in a foil packet as we do with our Grilled Sweet Potato recipe.
To keep the squash from sticking to the grill, make sure to preheat the grill. Preheating is usually enough to keep the squash from sticking if that doesn’t work, try oiling the grill before putting the squash on.
In our testing, we found that the pieces from the top of the squash tended to be denser than those towards the bottom. To make sure they’re cooked all the way through, the denser pieces often needed to be grilled a couple of minutes longer or cooked on a hotter part of the grill than those from the bottom.
You can learn more about how to use different areas on your grill in our piece on the White Bread Grill Test.
This grilled butternut squash recipe uses honey and maple syrup’s natural stickiness to coat the outside of the squash to create a crispy crust full of flavor. The chili powder helps to balance the sweetness in the honey and maple syrup, giving squash cooked this way a nice crispy outside and rounder, fuller flavor than a lot of other squash dishes.
This dish has the chops to stand out, whether it’s being served at a backyard BBQ or at a fancy dinner party. We like to serve it with a Grilled Pork Tenderloin or Smoked Turkey. Another side dish that compliments this recipe is our Sweet Corn and Anaheim Peppers.
Ingredients
- 1 butternut squash
- 2 tbsp maple syrup
- 1 tbsp honey
- 3 tbsp melted butter
- 1/2 tsp chili powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp pepper
Instructions
- Start by peeling the squash and cutting it in half lengthwise. Scoop out the seeds and cut the squash in 1/2 inch thick rounds
- Combine the melted butter, honey, maple syrup, chili powder, salt, and pepper with 1 tbsp of water.
- On a medium grill, that has been preheated, spread the squash out on the grill. Paint each slice with the glaze. After coating one side, turn the squash over, coat the other side, and continue grilling for 8 to 10 minutes.
- Flip the slices over, coat the other side with the glaze, and continue the process for another 8 to 10 minutes.
- The squash is done when the slices are soft all the way through, but not floppy. The best tasting ones are the ones with a little char on the outside but aren’t burnt.
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Mark is an experienced food writer, recipe developer, and photographer who is also Umami’s publisher and CEO. A passionate cook who loves to cook for friends, he can often be found in the kitchen or by the grill testing new recipes.
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