Roasted Butternut Squash Houmous

I love houmous and its one of my household staples that appear in my fridge at least 2-3 times a month. You can get some really tasty and interesting houmous varieties in the shops these days, but recently I have found I also enjoy making it myself.

Having recently bought some of the new Warburtons gluten free tortilla style wraps to try, I wanted some houmous to eat them with. As I had some butternut squash languishing in the fridge from making my butternut and ginger soup I decided to roast it and then blitz it into some homemade houmous to add a bit of interest.

Butternut squash is one of those fabulous vegetables – well tubers really, that go fabulously sweet and soft after a little roasting in the oven. You’d never think that something so tough and hard to slice could be transformed into something so soft and almost creamy, in just a few minutes. The vibrant golden orange colour helps add a little sunshine to whatever it’s served with too.

I had a jar of garlic chutney in the fridge too, so used some of that in place of the standard freshly grated garlic. This gave it more of a subtle sweet garlic flavour rather than the harsher raw garlic hit, but either works well. I also added a squeeze of lemon juice as I’ve found this really seems to enhance the flavours in houmous.

The resulting houmous was soft with an almost creamy mouthfeel from the velvety roasted squash, which also gave it a delicious natural sweetness. Although creamy in the mouth, the houmous itself was still a little on the coarse side which I like, as it adds texture and interest. I also left it quick thick so that it would be easier to spread on wraps and in sandwiches, but you can always make it thinner if you want to use it as a dip instead.

I loved the rich orange roasted colour it produced. Even though I usually associate roasted veg with winter, this seemed very fresh and summery. I served mine with an assortment of salads and olives, along with strips of the gluten free tortilla wrap. I then had fun making up little handheld wraps, almost soft taco style, using the houmous as the base. Delicious

Roasted Butternut Squash Houmous

Ingredients

300g butternut squash

400g tin chickpeas

1 tbsp roasted garlic puree/chutney (or 1 clove garlic grated)

2 tbsp olive oil

½ tbsp lemon juice

Method

Preheat the oven to 200C. Line a baking tray with foil.

Cut the butternut squash into 1cm thick slices and lay them out on the baking tray, leaving the skin on. Brush with half a tablespoon of oil and roast for 25-30 minutes until softened and just starting to take on some colour.

Once roasted, remove from the oven and set aside to cool.

Place the chickpeas, 1 tbsp of water from their tin and the remaining 1½ tablespoons of olive oil into a food processor and blitz to create a chunky paste. Scrape down the sides once or twice during the process.

Add some roasted garlic puree/chutney, or grate in 1 clove of fresh garlic and a pinch of salt and pepper.

Peel the skin off your roasted and cooled butternut squash using your fingers, it should come away easily.

Briefly mash the butternut into a mush and add to the blitzed chickpeas along with the lemon juice. Blitz again until well combined and the mixture is as smooth or chunky as you desire. (You can add a little more oil or a drop of water if it is too thick)

Spoon into an airtight container and store in the fridge until required.

Delicious served with crudités, on jacket potatoes, salads, wraps with crackers or in sandwiches etc.

Makes around 800g (you can freeze some in a Tupperware container if you don’t think you will eat it all straight away)