Autumn is right around the corner. That calls for the start of the soup and comfort food season. It also means that vegetables such as gourds and squashes are making a reappearance on our plates. And Butternut squash is one of the most popular ones to cook with because there are so many ways to prepare it. It can be turned into ravioli, soup, gnocchi, etc. Or, it can be roasted and then paired with any kind of meat or carb that you want. The possibilities are endless with this squash.
But there is only one drawback to cooking with butternut squash: peeling it as well as dicing it up. It’s a lot of hard work. It almost makes it not seem worth the effort at times. Not only does it take a lot of pure muscle to slice through one of these, but it also takes a lot of time.
One of the most obvious solutions is to just spend a little extra at the grocery store and buy the pre-cut squares. But the problem with those is that they’re much pricier, but there isn’t much that comes in the bags to begin with, so you end up spending more trying to buy enough to make your recipe. So, what can be done to avoid either overspending or accidentally chopping your fingers off? It’s a really simple hack that only takes three minutes.
Rather than dangerously laboring away to cut up your squash, what you can do is cut the ends off the squash, poke some holes in the vegetable, then stick it in the microwave for 3 minutes and 30 seconds. Basically, you need to warm it enough for the skin to soften.
Of course, when you take it out of the microwave be sure to let it cool a little bit. You don’t want to accidentally burn yourself. Not only does this hack help save you time and energy, but it helps to cook your recipe that much faster.
Check out the video hack below: