Creamy Butternut Squash Soup with Chicken

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This butternut squash soup with chicken is one of the easiest to make, it tastes so good, and it’s highly nutritious. The perfect meal on a cold day!

Benefits of Butternut Squash

We grow a lot of storage crops on our farm. But butternut squash may be my favorite!

It’s packed with vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and fiber but compared to sweet potatoes, it contains significantly less calories, carbohydrates, and sugar. Yet, it still has that starchy and sweet taste and texture!

Plus, in terms of storage, we’ve stored butternut squash on racks in our basement for a full year, long outlasting our potatoes and carrots.

After harvesting over 150 butternut squash this past fall, I’m always looking for new ways to use them. We already love adding butternut squash to our chili, but I wanted to experiment with trying more butternut squash based soups. This creamy butternut squash soup with chicken (and variations of it) have become a regular on our meal plans.

Butternut Squash Soup with Chicken Variations

While this recipe is delicious exactly as written here, this is also one that we love adapting to what we have on hand and what we feel like eating.

Some tasty variations include: 

• Swapping the chicken out for sausage or ground beef.
• Omitting the beans and replacing them with other veggies like chopped carrots, pepper, onion, and celery.
• Changing up the spices.

The base creamy butternut squash soup recipe is the same with pureed butternut squash, broth, salt, garlic, and cream, but you can play around with adding different mix-ins to the soup.

What’s Needed to Make Butternut Squash Soup with Chicken?

Equipment:

• Rimmed baking dish for cooking the butternut squash in.
• High powered blender (we love our Vitamix) for blending the soup.
• Stock pot or Dutch oven for warming and serving the soup.

Ingredients & Substitutions:

Butternut Squash – You could actually use any winter squash in this recipe, like hubbard or kabocha, in place of butternut.

Chicken Broth – We almost always have chicken broth on hand from cooking a weekly whole chicken, but beef or veggie broth could work as well. Or we’ve even used whey instead of broth which was a delicious substitution.

Garlic

Sea Salt

Italian Seasonings (or other herbs of choice)

Cream – This could be replaced by whole milk or canned coconut milk if dairy free.

Chicken – We love using the leftover cooked meat from a slow cooked whole chicken but you could use diced breasts or thighs as well. Or replace the chicken with ground sausage or beef for something a little different.

Black Beans – Canned beans would work fine or we grow Cherokee Trail of Tears black beans. The dried beans that I add to this butternut squash and chicken soup have already been soaked and cooked.

How to Make Creamy Butternut Squash Soup with Chicken

The beauty of this recipe is that there is very little chopping of veggies required, which means it’s super easy with less hands-on time needed!

First, the butternut squash needs to be cooked. To do this, cut the squash in half, length wise and scoop out the seeds (we love to give them to our chickens or they would be delicious roasted).

Place the squash cut side down on a rimmed baking sheet and bake at around 375°F for 45 min – 1 hour, depending on the size of the squash.

Once the squash is cooked and the flesh is soft and scoopable, remove it from oven. Using a spatula, flip squash over so it can begin to cool down enough to be handled.

When the squash is cool, scoop the flesh out directly into the container of a blender.

Then add the broth and garlic to the blender and blend until smooth. If you are making a very large pot of soup, you may need to do this in batches. This is the base of the soup.

Pour the creamy butternut squash mixture into a stock pot or dutch oven and add salt and other seasonings, cream, chopped chicken, and cooked beans.

Mix everything together and warm on the stove at medium-high heat until completely warmed through.

Can you freeze butternut squash soup?

I wouldn’t recommend freezing the soup after the cream has been added. The cream changes texture once frozen and isn’t as appetizing. But you could freeze the soup prior to adding the cream and then just thaw and add cream upon serving.

Or, I like to freeze pureed butternut squash, and if you have that on hand, it makes whipping up this soup very easy!

Can you make this soup in advance?

Yes! In fact, I always try to make soups a day or two in advance of when we’ll be eating them. Soup is one of those foods that gets better as the flavors have a chance to meld together. The soup will store well in an airtight container in the fridge for 3-5 days.

Creamy Butternut Squash Soup with Chicken Recipe

Yield: 6-8 servings

Ingredients:

– 1 medium butternut squash
– 4 cups chicken broth
– 2-3 cloves of garlic
– 2 cups cream
– 3-4 cups cooked chicken, chopped
– 2 cups black beans, cooked
– 1 tbsp sea salt
– 2 tsp Italian seasonings

Directions:

1. Cook butternut squash by cutting in half lengthwise and removing the seeds. Place cut side down on a baking sheet at bake at 375°F for 45 min – 1 hour depending on the size of squash.

2. Once the squash is soft and the flesh is scoopable, remove from oven and using a spatula, flip the butternut squash over so that it can begin cooling.

3. When you are able to handle the squash, scoop out the flesh into the container of the blender.

4. Add broth and garlic cloves to the blender and blend until smooth.

5. Pour creamy butternut squash soup base into a stockpot or Dutch oven.

6. Add cream, chopped chicken, beans, and seasonings to the soup.

7. Heat over medium-high heat on the stove to warm thoroughly.

Serve and enjoy!

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More Creamy and Delicious Soup Recipes:

Cheesy Hamburger Potato Soup
Creamy Chicken and Rice Soup
Broccoli Cheddar Soup with Chicken
Roasted Tomato Soup

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