Butternut Squash Quinoa Casserole

Butternut squash quinoa casserole is full of vegetables and makes a delicious vegetarian, gluten-free, and vegan friendly casserole for the whole family.

This casserole could have been a food fail.

Sometimes I don’t have a plan whatsoever for what I’m going to cook. I use it as an opportunity to use up veggies and random items in my pantry, and live up to my “trial and eater” name.

What I definitely needed to use up was a huge carton of pre-cut butternut squash. Beyond that, I knew I’d have to get creative.

Somehow in my head I thought it would be a good idea to use butternut squash in place of pasta and drench it in spaghetti sauce.

If that wouldn’t have been weird enough, the only sauce I had in my pantry was vodka sauce. Which is pretty thick and creamy.

You’d think after that I’d definitely have changed my mind about this weird experiment. But you’d be wrong.

Continuing with the butternut squash + vodka sauce idea, I started to cook some quinoa. Because yeah, that would go with vodka sauce (??).

I blame low blood sugar for my poor decision making skills.

Anyway, quinoa cooking and casserole dish prepped, I try to open the vodka sauce.

I’m telling you, I tried. I banged the top against the counter.

I used those grippy things. Ran the lid under hot water. It would.not.open. I think that was the universe telling me to give.it.up.

For all I know, butternut squash and vodka sauce is amazing. But I’ll never know.

What I DO know is that this quinoa casserole tasted much better than I imagine my original idea would.

I tried to save a step and see if the butternut squash would cook in the casserole with the quinoa, and I could not get that to work.

If anybody has tips for me on how to do that, please let me know. Maybe I needed more liquid in the dish for that to work?

Either way, I recommend pre-roasting the butternut squash and then tossing the quinoa and vegetables together to bake.

You can do that on the stove-top like this recipe, or oven-roast like this. Either way should take you about 15 minutes.

I went for more of a mexican-food vibe with black beans and corn, and tossed an avocado and tomato in there too.

Some people don’t like to add avocado before baking, so you can add slices after if you’d prefer.

To keep it vegan, you can leave off the cheese or use a non-dairy cheese.

But these pictures used real cheese.

You could also prep this recipe ahead of time (roast the squash, cook the quinoa, etc.) and put everything together in the casserole dish in the fridge.

I wouldn’t recommend trying to freeze this, but storing in the fridge for a day or two before baking should be fine. Everything will get hot and melted again after you put it in the oven.

You can smother it in hot sauce.

Or top with salsa or enchilada sauce.

But probably not vodka sauce. 😉

Want more butternut squash recipes? Try this squash & veggie bake dinner or this butternut squash macaroni!

Other popular casserole recipes:

• Grandma’s Baked Ziti
• Broccoli and Cheese Baked Potato Casserole