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Not sure what to make for your vegan Thanksgiving? Try this ah-mazing butternut squash casserole, with cashew cheese, leeks, kale, and pecans. Even your meat-eater friends and family will love it.
Get the recipe here: https://www.stephsunshine.com/vegan-life/vegan-butternut-squash-casserole
Find all my vegan Thanksgiving recipes here: https://www.stephsunshine.com/vegan-life/vegan-thanksgiving-recipes-menu
Find me on IG, FB, Pinterest, TikTok @msstephsunshine
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Oh hey, welcome back! Well, it's still fall, so I thought today I would make a delicious
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butternut squash casserole. But this is not any ordinary butternut squash casserole. For one
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it's vegan. And for two, it's made with cashew cheese, leeks, kale, and pecans. So it is packed
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with flavor and nutrients. This is also a really great vegan dish for Thanksgiving because everyone
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loves it. Even your meat eater friends will love this dish. As usual, I will put a link in the
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description below to the recipe on my website so you can follow along if you want. Now let's get
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started. The first thing that we need to do is roast our butternut squash. I'm going to preheat
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the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit and I'm going to prepare a baking tray with some parchment paper
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I'm also going to get out my casserole dish and spray it with some oil. So I have a medium-sized
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butternut squash. It's almost three pounds, not quite. And I am just going to peel it and
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chop it into cubes that are about an inch in size. Then I'm going to put those in a large bowl and toss them with three cloves of minced garlic
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half a cup of chopped fresh parsley, a tablespoon of olive oil, a teaspoon of salt, and half a
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teaspoon of black pepper. All of that is going to get spread on the baking sheet and then I will
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bake it for about 35 minutes until the squash is fork tender. After it's done, make sure you
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reduce the oven temperature to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. In the meantime, I'm going to start
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In the meantime, I'm going to start cooking my leeks over on the stove. I have four smallish leeks here
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Once I slice them up, we'll see if it's the right amount. So we are only using the white parts of
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the leeks, so I'll start by cutting off the green tops and then I'll cut the roots off of the bottom
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And I'm going to just slice the leeks in half so I can wash in between the layers. Typically
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there's a lot of dirt and sand in between the layers, so I found that slicing them in half is
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the best way to clean them. Once they're clean, we're just going to slice them into smaller pieces
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You're going to want to end up with about four cups of leeks. So I have a large saute pan here
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and I'm just going to add one and a half tablespoons of olive oil and heat it up over medium heat
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Then I will add my chopped leeks to the pan along with a tablespoon of fresh thyme, half a teaspoon
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of salt, and a quarter teaspoon of black pepper. And you just want to cook that until the leeks are
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tender, which should take about 10 minutes. So now we're also going to make a cashew cream. So
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if you don't have a high power blender, if you have an old one like mine, then you're going to
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want to pre-soak your cashews. So you can either soak them in water for two hours or you can just
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boil them for 10 minutes. So you're going to take a third of a cup of cashews and two-thirds of a
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cup of water, blend it up till it's nice and creamy. And then you're just going to add a
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tablespoon and a half of nutritional yeast for a little bit of nice cheesy flavor. I'm also going
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to make a flax egg to help bind everything together a bit. So that's two tablespoons of
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ground flax seed with a quarter cup of water. And we'll just need to let that sit for about five
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minutes to thicken up, and then we'll mix it into the cashew cream along with a quarter cup of bread
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crumbs. So now we're almost done. I'm just going to add my butternut squash, leeks, and cashew cream
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sauce into the baking dish and mix it up a little bit. And then put it in the oven for about 15
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minutes. While that's baking, I'm going to chop half of a cup of pecans, and I'm going to set
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aside one and a half cups of chopped green kale for the top of the casserole. Now that the 15
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minutes are up, let's finish this dish off. I have some treeline sea salt and pepper cashew cheese
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This cheese is absolutely amazing. It tastes very similar to goat cheese, and it goes amazingly well
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with the butternut squash. So I just want to add this so that it is a little bit crumbly. I'm not
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adding the whole thing. I'm only adding about two thirds of it. So I am going to use a fork to kind
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of break it up and add it in. And I'll add a cup and a half of chopped kale as well, and then I'll
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just mix it up a bit to get the kale and cashew cheese nicely distributed. And then I'm just
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taking my pecans and sprinkling them on top here before I put everything back in the oven for
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another 10 minutes. And we are done! So good. This one is a bit of work as you can tell, but it is so
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worth it. This is one of those recipes that just feels super indulgent, but it's actually pretty
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healthy. There is so much good stuff in here, and it tastes amazing. If you need more ideas for vegan
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Thanksgiving recipes, you can stick around. Hit subscribe because I've got plenty more coming your
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way. I also have a whole page on my website for vegan Thanksgiving recipes, so I will link that
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down below if you want to check it out. See you next time
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