I love when I have the ingredients in my fridge for a delicious, impromptu meal. Even better when the ingredients are all less than $5 total! Enter: Butternut Squash Pasta!

Last Friday, I was digging in my fridge to decide what to make for dinner. I’m still a work in progress when it comes to meal planning, and Fridays are a free for all. I had a bag of cubed butternut squash (Trader Joe’s for $1.99) that needed to be used, so it got my wheels turning. I typically keep rice and pasta on hand at all times and on this occasion I had some pappardelle (also Trader Joe’s, and just $1.99) waiting for exactly the perfect use.

First, I sauteed a sweet, yellow onion over medium-low heat until caramelized and soft. After setting that aside, I stirred in the butternut squash and water and cooked until tender. Once most of the water evaporated, I added the pasta, onion and MORE butter and a little reserved pasta water until the sauce was perfectly coating each noodle.

If you follow my Instagram stories, you may have seen that I actually burned some of the squash (oops!). I simply picked out the burnt pieces and continued on! In our house, we call the burnt pieces “blackened.” It’s important to have a sense of humor in the kitchen.

Even though I had all the ingredients on hand and the whole thing only cost $5, the best thing about this pasta dish was that my kids loved it as much as my husband and I did. It’s definitely one of those accidental recipes that I will keep in the rotation going forward!

Do you have any “happy accident” recipes that you now make on a regular basis?

Butternut Squash Pasta

Print Recipe

Buttery Butternut Squash Pasta

Ingredients

8 oz pappardelle
4 tablespoons ½ stick unsalted butter
1 large onion thinly sliced
Kosher salt and black pepper
12 oz butternut squash large dice
⅔ cup pecorino grated, plus more for serving (optional)

Instructions

Melt 2 tablespoons of the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion, salt & pepper (½ teaspoon each) and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft (about 15 minutes). Transfer to a plate.
Cook the pasta according to the package directions. Reserve 1 cup of the cooking water; drain the pasta and return it to the pot.
In the same large skillet you cooked the onions in, add the butternut squash and 1½ cups water to the reserved skillet, cover partially, and cook (stirring occasionally), until it is very soft and most of the water has evaporated (about 8-10 minutes.
Toss the pasta, onion, butternut squash, pecorino, the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter, and ½ cup of the reserved cooking water together (adding more cooking water as needed to loosen the sauce).

Butternut Squash Pasta

Buttery Butternut Squash Pasta

Ingredients

Instructions

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