Stuffed acorn squash filled with brown rice, lean ground beef, tomatoes and warming spices is a comforting and splendidly colorful dish loaded with earthy and delicious flavors.
Stuffed Acorn Squash, a Savory, Seasonal Stunner
For me, part of the fun and excitement over entering into this beautiful time of year—this colorful and soulful season—is the abundance of gorgeous looking produce, ready and available to be used for delicious, comforting and cozy recipes.
And little speaks of this lovely season more than acorn squash, that delicate, delectable and versatile sort of beautiful “antique” looking gourd with the sweet and bright orange flesh.
It's so stunning and so very perfect for creating mouthwatering recipes with!
I get excited when I begin to see acorn squash making its appearance in the produce departments of the markets I shop at, as I'm always reminded of one of my favorite savory recipes perfect for this time of year: stuffed acorn squash.
In my mind, a stuffed acorn squash recipe is one that not only tastes like this time of year, but looks every bit the part of something one would (and should) prepare during these cooler, cozier months, when healthy-yet-beautiful nourishment is what the body desires.
It's most certainly a wonderful and flavorful treat that invigorates the senses in all the best ways possible!
How to Cut Acorn Squash
Because acorn squash is a bit hard to cut through, it can seem a bit intimidating to work with. But never fear, I'll share a few tips with you on how I personally prefer to tackle it.
After that, you should find that it's smooth sailing when it comes to cooking it!
Here's how I prep acorn squash for cooking:
- First, I hold the squash horizontally on a cutting board so that the stem end is on my left, and the slightly pointy end is on my right.
- I take a large (sharp!) knife, and cut just enough of that pointy tip off to create more of a flat bottom; then, I flip the squash around and cut off just the stem portion (taking care not to cut too far as to get into the hollow part of the squash) to create another flat surface.
- Still holding the acorn squash horizontally, I place my knife in the center, and using a kitchen towel for extra leverage, I place the towel over my knife and push down quite hard until my knife makes its way through.
- If it doesn't go completely through, I give the squash a firm thud against the cutting board with my knife still in it (as you would with a coconut), and this always cuts/splits it the rest of the way for me.
- I then use a spoon to scoop out the seeds and stringy bits inside.
How to Cook Acorn Squash
For this recipe, I like to roast the acorn squash.
Roasted acorn squash has a natural sweetness, and it's incredibly tender and flavorful—ready to receive a wonderfully tasty and savory filling!
Here's how I roast acorn squash:
- I preheat my oven to 400°, and line a baking sheet with foil or parchment paper.
- After I've cut my acorn squash in half and scooped out the seeds and stringy bits, I rub the inside with olive oil, and season it with salt and pepper.
- Then, I place the squash cut-side down on my prepared baking sheet, and roast until tender, about 30-35 minutes.
- Next, I proceed with my stuffed acorn squash recipe below.
Tips & Tidbits for Stuffed Acorn Squash:
- Medium-large acorn squash: Because each squash is meant to feed two people, I like to use larger acorn squash; plus, it has a larger cavity to hold the filling.
- Roast cut-side down: I typically always roast my acorn squash cut-side down on the baking sheet—this creates some steam in the cavity as the squash roasts, which helps it stay moist and become tender. Simply rub some oil and sprinkle some salt/pepper into each cavity and place it cut-side down onto your baking sheet to roast.
- Brown rice, white rice, or quinoa: This recipe calls for brown rice, but you can certainly substitute white rice (jasmine or basmati are delicious!), or even quinoa, barley, or couscous—your choice!
- Ground beef, or your preferred protein: Lean ground beef is my pick for this stuffed acorn squash recipe, but you can use turkey, chicken, or even spicy sausage.
- Go vegetarian: This recipe is super easy to make vegetarian, or even vegan! Just leave out the meat altogether, or substitute ground soy, tofu, tempeh, or any other vegetarian option. You can even omit the cheese to make it vegan.
Feast your eyes on these, or just jump to the recipe:
Recipe
Stuffed Acorn Squash
by Ingrid Beer
Print Recipe
Category: Entree
Cuisine: American
Yield: Serves 4
Nutrition Info: 327 calories
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 35 minutes
Total time: 55 minutes
Ingredients:
• 2 acorn squash
• Olive oil
• Salt
• Fresh cracked black pepper
• ¼ onion, finely diced
• ¼ lb extra lean ground beef (96/4)
• 2 cloves garlic, pressed through garlic press
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• Pinch cayenne pepper
• Pinch cinnamon
• ¾ cup cooked brown rice
• ½ cup black beans
• ¼ cup cherry tomatoes, quartered
• 2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped, divided use
• 1 tablespoon sunflower seeds
• ¼ teaspoon orange zest
• ¼ cup finely shredded sharp white cheddar cheese
• 1 green onion, chopped, for garnish
-Preheat the oven to 400 degrees, and line a baking sheet with foil or parchment paper.
-Prepare the acorn squash by cutting off the bottom “point” to create a flat surface (don't take too much off), and also cut the stem part off to create another flat surface, again taking care to not cut too much off; next, cut the squash in half width-wise, in the center, creating 4 halves; scoop the seeds and stringy bits out, drizzle a little bit of olive oil into each of the 4 halves, and add a couple of pinches of salt and pepper to each half.
-Place each squash half onto the baking sheet with the cavity facing down, and roast for roughly 35 minutes, or until the flesh is fork tender; remove from the oven, and allow the squash to cool slightly until they can be handled; leave the oven on.
-While the squash roasts, cook the ground beef by placing a medium-size non-stick pan over medium-high heat, and drizzling in about 1 tablespoon of olive oil; once the oil is hot, add in the onion, and saute for about 2 minutes; next, add in the ground beef and break it up with a spoon/spatula into small crumble; once the beef has slightly browned, add in a couple of pinches of salt and pepper, the garlic, the cumin, the cayenne and the cinnamon, and stir to combine.
-Allow the beef to finish browning, then turn the heat off, and turn the seasoned beef mixture out into a bowl.
-Next, add to the beef the cooked brown rice, the black beans, the quartered cherry tomatoes, the chopped cilantro, the sunflower seeds and the orange zest, and combine the ingredients very well; add another pinch of salt if needed, and set the mixture aside for a moment, keeping warm.
-Once the squash is cool enough to handle, spoon equal portions of the beef/rice mixture into the cavity of each squash half, sprinkle over the top about 1 tablespoon of the sharp cheddar cheese, and place the halves back onto the baking sheet and into the oven to bake for an additional few minutes just until the cheese melts.
-Serve with this nice avocado salad, a tomato salad, or a green salad on the side!
Interested in another “stuffed” recipe? Check out this scrumptious Stuffed Eggplant!
Cook's Note: This post was originally published in 2013, and has been updated with even more love!
I want to paint this beautiful dish! What a colorful, healthy and savory dish for this month.
This is really beautiful. I can see this as an impressive lunch for friends. I love wow recipes.
I appreciate that, Madonna - thank you. And the best part is that it's not complicated; just cute and tasty!
My thought exactly. Looks so good and it's winter squash time! Have to try this.
Hi Connie, hope you do!
So yummy! I used quinoa instead of brown rice, skipped the cheese and beef to make it vegan, and topped it with guacamole. Thanks for your inspiring photos!
Sarah, sounds delicious!
I found this recipe and your blog through the Buzzfeed post, and I gotta say, this is one of the best things I've made/eaten in a long time. I only roasted one squash because that's what I had, but the stuffing fit perfectly into the two halves. Thank you for this awesome recipe! I can't wait to make it again.
Hey Emily, thanks so much your comment! Glad you enjoyed - it's one of our favorite healthy meals. I appreciate you stopping by and trying this recipe out!
I just made this and had to write about how amazing it was! We have just started trying to eat more healthy so this was a nice transition food to use what was still in the pantry and incorporate new items. The seasonings are so nice together. I used brown rice but I can see how this can be interchangeable with different grains and even meatless. I'm happy to add it to the new meal rotation. Thanks!
Thanks for that, Lisa - that's really wonderful! And you're so right about being able to interchange ingredients in this; it's great with quinoa, barley, or even no grains, as well!
This was SO tasty! I made it with turkey and all the flavors went together so well. Terrific recipe!
Julie, excellent (and leaner) substitution—perfect! Glad you enjoyed this tasty fall recipe, and thanks for taking a moment to share your experience with me!
Wow, this is so beautiful!
Thank you, Steph!
This was delicious, beautiful to look at and easy to prepare. My husband and I look forward to having regularly.
Cheryl, thanks so much for sharing how things turned out for you! I'm so pleased that you and your hubby enjoyed this, and that it was easy enough to prepare. Honored to have it go into your rotation!
This beautiful dish was yummy and easy! My daughter, the Art teacher, said it looked like a piece of art! I can't wait to serve friends for a holiday lunch. Thanks for sharing!
Helen, that's wonderful! It's my pleasure to share this, and I'm so thrilled that you'll be serving it to friends for lunch! Thank you for your kind comments.
This looks amazing!! I am usually one who cooks from recipes so I don't venture too far on my own. I was wondering though if mushrooms would work instead of ground beef. My daughter for health reasons is deleting meat from her diet. I want to make one as per your recipe, but was hoping to find a meat alternative for the other one. Any suggestions would definitely welcomed!!
Hi there Dayle Ann, thanks for your question! You could certainly substitute chopped mushrooms for the meat; another alternative would be ground soy—it looks like ground beef, has a very similar texture (it's technically texturized soy), and can be very easily seasoned. I actually used to use this for my own clients who were vegan/vegetarian in this type of recipe. You can find it at Whole Foods Market, or Trader Joes, or Sprouts. It should be in the vegetarian section near the tofu, etc. Hope you all enjoy!
Delicious ... Will definitely make this again.
Hi Mary Evelyn, so glad you enjoyed this recipe! Thank you for commenting.
Tried it, Loved it
Mel, I love your comment: short & sweet! So glad you enjoyed the recipe, and thanks for commenting! 🙂
Delicious! Maybe I just used big acorn squashes, but I will make more filling the next time I make this so it heaps instead of just filling the cavity. And double the meat for my carnivore of a boyfriend. Thanks for this great recipe!
Hi Delaney, so glad you both enjoyed!! And yes—do tweak the recipe according to your needs/tastes. 🙂
Thanks for a great recipe! I used ground turkey instead of beef and cooked the squash in the microwave because I was short on time. Still works!
Shameem, so glad you enjoyed, and prepared this according to your liking! 🙂
WOW is all I can say about this. I made this last night and both my boyfriend and I thought it was SO delicious. I subbed a brown, red, and wild rice plus quinoa blend, and had PLANNED to replace the sunflower seeds with pine nuts, but forgot to add them. Wamp wamp. 😉 I also used orange and red tomatoes for some extra color. SO good. I've been telling everyone about it. Thank you for sharing!
Hey Teri, so glad you and your boyfriend enjoyed the recipe! Great tweaks, by the way. 🙂 Thanks for taking a moment to share your experience (and for telling others about it)!
I'm excited to make this! Silly question... do you eat the skin of the squash?
Hi Jill! Glad you're going to give the recipe a try! And no, it's not a silly question; you actually would not enjoy the skin, as it's too waxy and tough. 😉
This was so delicious! I had to sub in a few things because I thought I had certain pantry items and I didn't, but I really loved the flavor. Thanks.
Maria, way to go with finding good substitutions that you did have on hand, lol! Glad you enjoyed, and thanks for sharing your experience!
This was amazing. I used veggie "ground beef" since I'm a vegetarian and it turned out great. I was wondering about adding the orange zest in, but the flavour combo was perfect. I did cook also cook it on the BBQ, turned out great. Plus the salad was amazing, it's a great simple salad.
Hi Jessica, great sub-in with the veggie crumbles—I've used those for vegetarian partakers, and it works great! So glad you enjoyed these, and thanks for commenting.
This is one gorgeous Fall dish!
Thank so much, Sommer!
Do you have any nutritional info on this recipe. Looks amazing!
Do the beans in this recipe need to be precooked, canned, dry?
Michelle, I used canned black beans for ease.
Hoooly wow! This was so delicious! I messed up totally but it still tasted great! I left out the beans cuz I didn't have any, but I accidentally forgot about the orange zest, cilantro and sunflower seeds. And since I don't want beef, I used mushrooms, and it tasted great! Thank you so much for sharing!
Wow, Camil, way to make this recipe totally your own!
Glad you enjoyed the basic recipe, and that your results were so tasty. Thanks for sharing!
Tastes really good with ground chicken
Glad you enjoyed Garry!
If you put the squash in the microwave for a couple of minutes, it cuts so much easier. Cut from base to stem for a more equal distribution of squash as bottom of the squash is not as meaty.
Looking forward to making this. Question : is the 3/4 c rice cooked or raw?
Hi Cathie, the recipe calls for cooked brown rice. Hope you enjoy! 🙂
If I understand your question, I believe it should be 3/4 cup cooked brown rice - not 3/4 brown rice, cooked.
Absolutely delicious and stunning on the table! The mix of spices really gives this dish so much more depth than other stuffed squash recipes I’ve tried. Keeping this recipe in my bookmarks for sure.
Thanks so much, Emi! So glad you enjoyed this yummy and healthy recipe, and hope you enjoy it for a long time to come.