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You are here: Home / Recipes / Stuffed Acorn Squash with Barley, Fennel & Parmesan Cheese Recipe

Stuffed Acorn Squash with Barley, Fennel & Parmesan Cheese Recipe

October 16, 2016

Many different types of squash are very good for you. I eat a lot of butternut squash because this type has a fairly robust amount of flesh and is easy to peel and cut up. I also really enjoy acorn squash, which caramelizes quickly and offers a sweet, rich flavor. Beyond the flavor of acorn squash is a fair amount of health benefits. Now, in this post, I’ll only be writing about acorn squash, but similar benefits apply to many different types.

Check this out:

Acorn squash contains vitamin A, niacin, folate, thiamine and vitamin B-6, but it is an especially good source of vitamin C. A 1/2-cup serving of cooked, cubed acorn squash provides approximately 20 percent of the recommended daily allowance of vitamin C for healthy adults following a 2,000-calorie diet.

Last night, I prepared two full squash that yielded four servings. The dinner was excellent and both Laura and I were stuffed to the gills. The recipe wasn’t terribly difficult to prepare and there were many healthy and flavorful ingredients included. I’m pretty excited about this dish.

Stuffed Acorn Squash with Barley, Fennel & Parmesan Cheese Recipe

The Recipe

I already talked about the squash used in this recipe. As far as the filling goes, it’s awesome. It takes advantage of barley, sweet onion, fennel, garlic, walnuts and herbs. The flavor is derived from the toasting of the walnuts, the herbs and Parmesan cheese, among other things. There’s a lot going on here and now that it’s getting chilly outside, I can tell you from personal experience that there’s nothing like curling up on the couch in front of the wood stove to enjoy a wonderful stuffed acorn squash dinner.

Ingredients

Serves: 4

Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
2 Medium Sized Acorn Squash
Regular Table Salt
Ground Black Pepper
3/4 Cup Dry Pearl Barley
1 Large Sweet Onion, Chopped
1 Fennel Bulb with Stalks, Cored, Trimmed and Chopped
6 Teaspoons Garlic, Minced
1/2 Teaspoon Dried Thyme
1 Teaspoon Ground Coriander
1 Cup Parmesan Cheese, Shredded
1/2 Cup Parsley, Chopped
1/4 Cups Walnuts, Crushed and Toasted
Balsamic Vinegar

See also  Stuffed Acorn Squash with Cranberries, Mushrooms & Quinoa Recipe

Step-by-Step Instructions

I’d like to thank America’s Test Kitchen for this recipe. I pulled it from The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook. Their version is called Stuffed Acorn Squash with Barley, but I thought a more descriptive title was in order, so I expanded upon it for this post.

Pre-Heat Oven


Arrange the racks in the oven so one of them is in the center bottom position. Then, pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees.

Prep & Cook the Squash

The first thing you’ll need to do, food-wise, is to cut both of the acorn squash in half, from stem to stem. Then, clean the seeds out from each piece.

Cleaned Acorn Squash

Next, line a baking sheet (or in my case, a cast iron pizza pan) with aluminum foil and brush the foil with olive oil. Then, brush the flesh of the squash with olive oil as well. After that, sprinkle the insides of the squash halves with some salt and pepper and place, face down, on the foil.

Acorn Squash on Baking Sheet

When the oven is to temperature, place the baking sheet on the bottom rack and let cook for about 45 minutes. You’ll know when they’re finished when you see the caramelization like you do in the photo below. Also, you’ll be able to slide a fork into the flesh easily.

Cooked Acorn Squash

When finished, remove the tray from the oven and flip the squash over. Keep the oven on.

Cook the Barley


Since the squash takes a while to cook, you can prepare the filling in the meantime. Bring 3 quarts of water to a boil in a large pot. When it is boiling, add the barley and 1/4 teaspoon of salt.

See also  Black Bean & Cheddar Stuffed Spaghetti Squash Recipe

Dried Pearl Barley

After the barley has been added, bring the water back to a boil and then reduce the heat to a simmer and let cook for about 20 minutes or until tender. Once finished, strain and place the cooked barley in a bowl for later use.

Cooked Pearl Barley

Prep Remaining Ingredients

I used the time the barley was cooking to prep the remaining ingredients. First, I chopped the fennel and sweet onion and placed it in a bowl.

Chopped Fennel & Sweet Onion

Then, I chopped the parsley and placed it in a bowl as well.

Chopped Parsley

And then, I drizzled a bit of olive oil over the crushed walnuts and browned them over medium heat in a small skillet.


Toasted Crushed Walnuts

Cook the Fennel & Onion

After the barley was finished cooking, I used the same pot to soften the fennel and onion. I warmed the pot over medium heat, added 1 tablespoon of olive oil and added the onion and fennel. I then cooked, while stirring, for about 10 minutes until the ingredients were softened.

Combine Ingredients

Once that was finished, I added the garlic, thyme and coriander to the fennel and onion mixture, stirred and cooked for another minute. After that, I turned off the stove top heat and added the cooked barley, parsley, walnuts, 3/4 cup of shredded Parmesan cheese and 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Finally, I seasoned with salt and pepper to taste and mixed everything together thoroughly.

Squash Stuffing

The final step necessary to create the filling is to scoop out some of the flesh from each piece of squash and then add it to the pot of other ingredients. I would say to remove half of the inside layer of flesh. Once you do that, simply add the squash flesh to the pot and stir well again.

See also  Italian Mussel Soup Recipe

Assemble the Stuffed Squash

Now that all the pieces have been prepared, you can assemble the stuffed squash. Fill each half of squash with filling until you have a nice mound in each one.

Adding Filling to Halves of Acorn Squash


Then, sprinkle some Parmesan cheese over each mound of filling.

Adding Shredded Parmesan to Filling

When this is done, place the assembled squash that are still on the baking tray back in the oven. Let them sit in there for about 10 minutes until the Parmesan cheese melts. Once it does, remove the tray and turn off the heat. At this point, you can drizzle some balsamic vinegar on top of the Parmesan, so it soaks into the filling. I’d say about 1 teaspoon of vinegar per piece.

The Final Stuffed Squash

As I said above, this is a great dish for a chilly autumn night. Get ready to be filled up with deliciousness because this is a good one. Enjoy!

Stuffed Acorn Squash with Parmesan Cheese on Top

Related posts:

  1. Stuffed Acorn Squash with Cranberries, Mushrooms & Quinoa Recipe
  2. Roasted Butternut Squash with Pecans, Goat Cheese & Maple Syrup Recipe
  3. Roasted Beet & Quinoa with Goat Cheese, Fennel & Pecan Salad Recipe
  4. Zucchini, Tomato & Parmesan Cheese Frittata Recipe
  5. White Bean & Barley Soup with Collard Greens Recipe

Filed Under: Recipes

About Jay Gaulard

My name is Jay Gaulard and I'm what I like to call an "inexperienced chef," if that's not an oxymoron. I initially decided to immerse myself into the world of food and cooking in May of 2015, when I began growing, in earnest, my first garden. The garden produced a wonderful yield and with some newfound confidence, my hobby of learning about what I eat took shape. Currently, I'm enrolled in an online cooking school and am quite active with the culinary community. I primarily write posts about what I research and learn along the way.

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