Ditch Potatoes For A More Fall-Inspired Hasselback Side Dish

A hasselback potato is a wonderfully simple food, with thin, vertical slices connected at the bottom made tender from roasting in a hot oven, waiting for butter to be melted into the crevices. While a potato is a glorious vehicle to absorb other flavors, it can be bland on it's own without the help of salt and a fat like butter or sour cream. Butternut squash, on the other hand, has plenty of flavor all on it's own before adding any seasonings, especially in peak season autumn. This naturally occurring flavor, paired with its sturdy texture, makes it the ideal candidate to slice thinly almost all the way through in a hasselback style, especially perfect for fall. 

Orange-hued squashes and pumpkins are a quintessential sign of autumn, but there may be no other edible winter squash quite so popular as butternut squash, with its long, cylindrical neck and small seed-filled bottom. This shape also makes it extremely easy to slice in a hasselback fashion after it's been peeled and halved. 

In the same way you'd cut slices into a potato, use the chopstick trick while slicing into butternut squash so the knife doesn't accidentally cut all the way to the bottom of the squash, keeping the vegetable intact. The trick to making a hasselback squash, compared to a potato which you can slice up before roasting, is to par-bake the squash so that it's tender enough to slice through easily before you return it to the oven to fully roast, like the method used in this hasselback squash with Fresno agrodolce recipe. 

To serve a hasselback butternut squash dish, it's really all about the other parties that get involved, like sauces and toppings. While you can simply roast your hasselbacked butternut squash with nothing more than oil and salt, you could slip some whole, fresh herbs in between a some of the slices. Sage is a fantastic herb that's also in season in the fall, and the herb's sturdiness holds up well in a hot oven for a long period of time. After the squash is roasted and tender, pour a sage brown butter sauce all over the squash before you serve it, making sure to get the sauce in between the slices as much as possible.

Go spicy with a drizzle of hot honey, a bath of Calabrian chili paste vinaigrette, or serve the entire squash over a platter with fresh ricotta cheese whipped in a food processor with 'nduja, a spicy, spreadable pork sausage, for a perfect balance of creamy and spicy. For those If you prefer the sweeter side of things, make a quick pan sauce of sautéed shallots, maple syrup, dijon mustard, and apple cider vinegar to pour all over the sliced butternut squash as it comes out of the oven (adding a dressing to vegetables when they are hot helps them absorb the sauce and the accompanying flavors as they cool). Then top everything with arugula for a pop of freshness.