Butternut Squash Pasta Sauce

I was looking at photos of this recipe that I made and photographed back in our first house in 2017 and realized that the recipe has never actually lived online!! It's always been written out in the Instagram post's caption! Sharing here to give it a more permanent and sharable home.

When I first made this recipe I was going for alfredo vibes. Since 2017 - I've learned that traditional alfredo components don't involve heavy cream lol, that's American alfredo! So call it what you want, but there are definitely alfredo vibes. The key to making the sauce super luscious is watering it down with pasta water and adding a pat of butter while mixing the pasta into it.

IMPORTANT:
Almost all of my recipes make enough for 2 large portions or 4 smaller side dishes of pasta, but since we're roasting an entire butternut squash here, this is a larger scale recipe. It makes enough sauce for 6-8 pasta dishes. (6 regular serving sizes and 8 on the smaller side.) So what I usually do, is I cut the squash/garlic/cream puree in half after it comes out of the blender. Before watering it down with salty pasta water and adding butter, it's essentially butternut squash soup, so I eat it that way as soup or save it to pour over another batch of pasta in a few days!

What you need:

• 1/2 lb pasta (I love using fresh tagliatelle)
• 1 butternut squash, peeled and cubed
• 4-5 garlic cloves
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1/4 cup evoo
• 3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1/4 cup parmesan cheese
• 1/4 cup reserved pasta cooking water
• 1 tbsp butter
• Optional - cripsy fried sage leaves and more parm for garnishing

What to do:

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. a
2. Peel and dice a butternut squash into cubes and add them to a baking dish with the garlic cloves. Season with salt, pepper and evoo. Mix well to coat and then bake for 35 minutes. (Every oven is different so check to make sure the BNS is super soft and mashes with a fork veryyyy easily.) 
3. Pour the contents of the baking dish into a food processor or blender, add the cream and pulse until smooth. The finished texture should be creamy and a little on the thicker side, like soup. (Here's where I remove half of the sauce and save for soup or another batch of this recipe, see my notes in the recipe intro!)
4. Pour half of the sauce into a skillet on low heat. Add in the pasta water, parm and butter and mix. 
   
5. Toss the pasta in the sauce and serve hot. Top with crispy sage and more freshly grated parmesan cheese.