Hearty and full of flavour! This vegan friendly butternut squash chickpea coconut curry is delicious on its own or even better paired with soft homemade garlic pan fried naan bread.
In a large soup or stock pot, heat olive oil on high heat. Add yellow onions and sauteé for 1 minute. Add garlic and continue sauteéing until fragrant and onions are translucent.
Add butternut squash, sea salt and black pepper. Mix for 2 minutes on high heat. Add chickpeas and continue mixing for 1 minute.
Pour white wine over squash and keep stirring for another 3 minutes or until the wine has evaporated a little bit. (skip this step if you're not using wine)
Sprinkle curry powder onto squash and stir continuously on high heat for 1 minute. Add vegetable stock and bring to boil. Cover pot with lid and turn heat down to medium low. Cook for 20 minutes stirring occasionally.
Remove pot lid and cook curry uncovered for another 20 minutes to allow some of the liquid to evaporate and thicken curry. Pour coconut milk into curry, mix and continue to cook for another 5 minutes.
Garnish with chopped green onion and serve with Naan bread or rice.
Video
Notes
How to peel uncooked butternut squash? Uncooked butternut squash is tougher to cut through due to its raw state (but not impossible!). Some prefer to bake then peel it (which is totally fine), however for our curry, we'll need to do this prior to cooking. We want to cook our curry with uncooked squash due to the amount of liquid we're adding to soften it and also because we want our squash to retain some solid texture. If we start with already cooked squash, it will end up turning into soup. Start by cutting off the top (stem) and bottom part using a cleaver or very sharp knife (the flat ends will help keep the squash upright at times). Place the squash on the cutting board vertically then use a vegetable peeler and start from the middle of the squash to peel the skin with downward strokes OR place squash on its side, length wise and peel with sideways strokes, away from you. Do this until half of the squash has been peeled. Flip the squash around and repeat the same peeling process until the entire squash is peeled. Cut the squash in half, length wise and use a soup spoon or paring knife to scrape out the seeds from the squash. Cut squash into approximately 1 x 1 inch cubes. An alternative to this can be ready-to-cook peeled & cubed butternut squash you can buy at most grocery stores now. Why add white wine? This is optional. Adding wine such as chardonnay (or other white wine with fruity ripe notes ) enhances the flavour and aroma of our curry. If you want to keep this dish kid-friendly then you can totally skip the wine. Can I use yoghurt instead of coconut milk? Absolutely! I stuck with coconut milk to make our curry vegan friendly but you can substitute for 1 cup plain, regular or greek yoghurt for sure (or even regular milk).