Butternut Squash Tacos with Spicy Black Beans
A few miles from my house on the corner of a busy street filled with rundown strip malls and auto body shops sits my culinary north star: the taco bus. It is parked at the back of a small, potholed lot. A portable carport plastered with mariachi posters leans against the side and serves as a patio. Inside, the seats have been removed and low stainless steel counters and short stools line the foggy windows. At the back, a lone chef warms small white corn tortillas on a hot griddle before carefully topping them with carnitas, a squirt of hot salsa and finely chopped white onion. Each order comes with a grilled jalapeno, thinly sliced radish, and a choice of three salsas.
It is heaven.
Vegetarian pickings are slim at the taco bus, so I dreamed up these tacos for Jon. Small cubes of homegrown butternut squash and onions are dusted with chile powder, cumin, and coriander and roasted until they are sweet and caramelized. Warm corn tortillas and black beans, stewed with tomatoes and roasted jalapenos from the garden, form the foundation of the tacos. A topping of cojita cheese and lime add in salty and sour notes. They are the perfect warm up for a chilly night and my favorite way to use the vegetables I stocked away in the freezer earlier this fall.
Butternut Squash Tacos with Spicy Black Beans
Butternut squash has a tendency to go all mushy when roasted, because the squash cubes steam when they are crowded into a pan. I’ve found that scattering the squash in a thin layer across the bottom of a rimmed baking sheet helps the pieces develop crunchy, caramelized bits. Because this recipe calls for so much squash, I divide it between two pans and rotate them in the oven halfway through the roasting process.
You’ll need:
½ of a medium butternut squash, peeled and cut into ½ inch cubes (about 5 cups)
½ cup white onion, chopped
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 ½ teaspoons cumin
1 ½ teaspoons coriander
2 teaspoons plus 1 tablespoon ancho chile powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups tomatoes, skinned, seeded and chopped (or 1 15-ounce can fire roasted, diced tomatoes)
2 15-ounce cans black beans
2 jalapenos
1 serrano chile (if you like spicy beans)
¼ cup cilantro, chopped
12 small corn tortillas
½ cup crumbled cojita cheese (or feta)
Lime wedges
Instructions:
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F. Heat a cast iron skillet over medium high. Place the jalapenos and serrano (if using) into the pan and cook until the skins are charred and blistered in spots. Remove the pan from the heat and set the peppers aside.
In a large bowl, toss the squash and onions together with 2 tablespoons olive oil. Sprinkle the cumin, coriander, 2 teaspoons of the chile powder, and 1 teaspoon salt over the squash and onions and toss until well coated. Divide the vegetables between two rimmed baking sheets and spread them out in a thin layer, so each piece has a bit of room between it and its neighbors. Place into the oven and roast for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the edges of the squash and onions begin to brown. Rotate the pans and give the vegetables a quick stir halfway through.
Meanwhile, peel, stem and seed the chiles before chopping them finely. Then, heat the remaining tablespoon of olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium high heat. Add the garlic and cook for a minute or two before pouring in the tomatoes. Allow the tomatoes and garlic to bubble briskly for five to ten minutes, or until the tomatoes reduce down to a loose sauce. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of the chile powder over the tomatoes and then stir in the chiles and the beans with their liquid. Cook the beans over medium heat for 15 minutes, stirring carefully so you do not smoosh them. When the beans reach your preferred consistency, remove them from the heat, stir in the cilantro, and adjust the seasonings.
To assemble the tacos, spread a few spoonfuls of strained beans (I use a slotted spoon) onto a warm tortilla. Place a mound of roasted squash and onions on top of the beans. Shower the tacos with crumbled cojita cheese, chopped cilantro, and a squeeze of fresh lime juice.
Yummy Vegetarian Tacos
The squash before they became tacos!
Wow. That sounds so yummy good!
This coming spring, the hubby and I will be making our first attempt at raising the bar from growing tomatoes in pots to raised beds/major veggie gardening. Without question there will be Butternut squash among other treasures. I’ll be making this recipe much sooner than that, you can bet on it. Thanks!
November 25th, 2008 at 12:48 pmOh, gosh. Those look so good. I’m on a butternut squash craze right now and butternut squash tacos are right up my alley. Thanks for sharing!
November 25th, 2008 at 3:10 pmThose sound just amazing. And they look amazing, too. I flippin’ love butternut squash and I think this would be a great way to sneak it by the fiance! Thanks!!
November 25th, 2008 at 8:42 pmGialuna–How exciting you’re going to make the jump to raised beds! If you have any questions as you get started, let me know! Wendy and Andrea–I’m with you on being crazy for butternut squash. We had a bumper harvest, so I’ve been cooking it all sorts of ways!
November 26th, 2008 at 10:34 amThis looks so delicious!
November 26th, 2008 at 4:48 pmSans the cheese and these are vegan! The squash is lovely!
December 3rd, 2008 at 3:46 pmI just want you to know that you’ve convinced me to expand my garden this year. I live in south Florida and can garden most of the year, and I usually have two 4′ x 8′ beds and some containers going (always organic), but the yard is going to get a new look this year. I think next weekend I’m going to start with some butternut squash going up my fence just the way you’ve described with the wire lathe. Tried summer squash last summer and 2 plants spread out of the bed and into the yard which our dogs enjoyed munching on and what they missed the yard guy got.
You’re recipes look quite delicious, too, though I’ll never get away with that much vegetarianism in my house – the hubby is a definite meat-and-potatoes guy. He is used to having gardens, though, as he grew up with them in Tennessee.
I can’t tell you how long I’ve been dreaming of having chickens for eggs, but I don’t think I can pull it off – 3 long-hair dachshunds prevent that – I’ll never be able to control the puppy yapping.
Thanks for inspiring me to step up the gardening effort.
December 3rd, 2008 at 4:13 pmThese look awesome! I am always looking for new ways to use butternut squash, and I never thought of taco’s. Great stuff.
December 3rd, 2008 at 6:11 pmOh my gosh! I just made this recipe today for my boyfriend! It was AMAZING!!! THANK YOU!
December 6th, 2008 at 4:41 pmGreat recipe…concept, flavorings, execution!
January 23rd, 2009 at 7:02 amIt is a cold winter day in Reno so I think it is the perfect time to make the tacos. I hope they taste as good as I know they do in your kitchen. You have such a great knack for putting the right flavors together. Martha
February 22nd, 2009 at 10:53 amI found this recipe by searching “taco” on tastespotting, hee. Made these for a cinco de mayo gathering last night and they were beyond yummy. Loved by both meat and non-meat eaters.
May 6th, 2009 at 11:13 am[...] Butternut Squash Black Bean TacosTuesday: Soup & Corn muffinsWednesday: Veggie Fajitas with Black BeansThursday: Mushroom & [...]
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June 28th, 2009 at 6:00 pm[...] get enough of these and said that the beans alone were worth making. The recipe can be found here, at DigginFood. One warning though: They are spicy!! I’d recommend starting with half the [...]
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August 2nd, 2009 at 9:26 pmJust started my butternut harvest of ’09 and am so excited to try this recipe. Saw it last year and got motivated to grow more winter squash just for it.
I thought I’d seen something on your site about best ways to store winter squash over winter, but I can’t find it now. Have you/will you do such a write up? I know you kept butternuts a long time last winter!
Thanks!
October 1st, 2009 at 8:34 am[...] a windstorm. Seriously, that takes dedication. Luckily for me, he accepts payment in the form of butternut squash tacos made with squash grown on the still standing [...]
October 1st, 2009 at 10:42 ammy mouth is watering right now at 7:50am! I will definitely make these soon.
October 2nd, 2009 at 7:50 am[...] going to post a recipe on here today. Tonight’s internet recipe was based off of another internet recipe and I made some changes I thought I’d post in [...]
October 15th, 2009 at 10:14 pmI love butternut squash but no one else I know has even tried it. I’m sure they wouldn’t know what it even is. That looks absolutely yummy.
March 21st, 2010 at 2:46 am[...] Butternut Squash Tacos with Spicy Black Beans: Butternut squash has a tendency to go all mushy when roasted, because the squash cubes steam when they are crowded into a pan. I’ve found that scattering the squash in a thin layer across the bottom of a rimmed baking sheet helps the pieces develop crunchy, caramelized bits. Because this recipe calls for so much squash, I divide it between two pans and rotate them in the oven halfway through the roasting process. Found at DigginFood. [...]
July 29th, 2010 at 12:10 pmI want to thank you for this recipe, it is so good! I grew a bumper crop of butternut squash this year, butternut rugosa, which is huge, (as in 10 pound squash) so I do appreciate delicious ways to prepare it!
November 4th, 2010 at 1:47 pm[...] Butternut Squash Tacos with Spicy Black Beans [...]
December 2nd, 2010 at 2:53 pmThis sounds delicious. What is the number of serving typical for the butternut squash tacos recipe? Any tips on making parts of it in advance of a large dinner?
December 7th, 2010 at 11:33 amThis recipes serves 6. For a large dinner I would make the beans up to two days in advance and also peel and cube the squash. The on the day of I would chop the onion, add it to the squash and roast the squash while I heated up the beans, chopped up some extra cilantro, and crumbled the cheese. I often serve a spicy cabbage slaw on the side.
December 9th, 2010 at 1:06 pm[...] Butternut squash and spicy black bean tacos [...]
January 12th, 2011 at 1:44 pm[...] food and I love squash. The two don’t normally go hand-in-hand, but checkout this recipe from DigginFood. Maybe with a little hot [...]
February 15th, 2011 at 6:35 amIt’s out of season, but for some reason I had to have these! I used sweet potatoes, rather than butternut squash. It was so good! Thank you for sharing your recipe.
May 22nd, 2011 at 7:52 pmi just made these for my daughter. we had a squash that was given to me from a friends garden and didnt have any ideas on what i should do, i looked this web site up and decide to make it, it was beyound wonderful and this is coming from a person who dosnt like squash
September 4th, 2011 at 9:30 pmBrianna–I am so glad that you and your family liked them. They are a favorite at our house too
September 12th, 2011 at 5:42 pmhaha great! i have everything i need! i am going to make these RIGHT NOW (once i can will myself up, but very soon, i assure you)!
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February 18th, 2013 at 5:42 pm