Since the tastes are so reminiscent of autumn, I only prepare this recipe in the fall. The warm cranberries and a dash of maple syrup really make it pop. This is elegant enough for company and goes great with a full-bodied white wine and some crusty bread. Late August marks the beginning of my husband’s requests for it!
| Prep Time: | 15 mins |
| Cook Time: | 35 mins |
| Total Time: | 50 mins |
| Servings: | 4 |
| Yield: | 4 halves |
Ingredients
- 2 acorn squash, halved and seeded
- 1 ½ teaspoons dark brown sugar
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- salt and ground black pepper to taste
- 1 tablespoon butter, cut in small pieces
- 1 (16 ounce) package maple-flavored breakfast sausage
- 1 cup cooked wild rice
- ½ cup dried cranberries
- ¼ cup chicken stock
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
- Arrange squash halves, cut-side up, in a roasting pan. Run a fork through the meat of each half, creating grooves. Sprinkle with brown sugar, cinnamon, salt, and pepper; dot with butter pieces.
- Bake in the preheated oven until meat is tender enough to puncture with a fork, 30 to 40 minutes.
- Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Cook and stir sausage in the hot skillet until browned and crumbly, 5 to 7 minutes; drain and discard grease. Add wild rice, cranberries, and chicken stock; cook and stir until rice and cranberries have absorbed the chicken stock, about 5 minutes.
- Spoon the sausage filling into each squash half. Return stuffed squash to oven and bake until flavors have blended, 5 to 10 minutes.
- If maple-flavored sausage is not available, use regular flavor sausage and add 1 tablespoon maple syrup to sausage during cooking.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 506 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 49 g |
| Cholesterol | 73 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 5 g |
| Protein | 19 g |
| Saturated Fat | 10 g |
| Sodium | 1085 mg |
| Sugars | 17 g |
| Fat | 28 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
We absolutely love this recipe! We add some slivered almonds and slice up an apple for a bit of crunch. Part of our fall rotation when we start picking squash from the garden
Recipes are always a starting place. I used white rice so I added a little celery and a few pecans to the stuffing. The brown sugar and cranberries give it a nice sweetness. Not too sweet. I put some buttered bread crumbs on top. I only had 1 squash for the two of us so I put the extra stuffing in a buttered dish for tomorrow’s side.
Cut cooking time by cooking the halves of squash cut side down in a baking dish in the microwave w/ 1/2 inch water coming up the sides of the squash. Microwave 10-15 mins depending on size. Used dried cherries instead of cranberries. Delicious!
The whole family liked it. It will be part of my personal recipe book.
Very good, will make again!!
Love this recipe! Wonderful assortment of textures and flavors. I substituted the bread crumbs for wild rice. Will make it again and again!
I’ve made this a couple times. This time I had no sausage, so I used ground turkey that I seasoned with caraway, minced onion, a wee bit of garlic, and thyme. Didn’t have any crans, either, so used raisins, and I added some chopped walnuts to the stuffing, too. Again, the cooking time and/or temp was a bit low, but we got there. Glad we did, too, because it was so good! Whole family enjoyed it. The combination of the savory and sweet is just about perfect.
I made this with the maple sausage but tonight I am just using the mild pork sausage. Delicious. I just cut back on the sugar.
Very good and easy! I made the recipe as written. The kitchen smelled wonderful! It is very fall like. Don’t skip the maple…..it adds something delicious to this dish! A little food psychology…..my family doubted that this was the whole dinner and not just the vegetable! I told them it was a casserole baked in a vegetable instead of a dish. I plated it with my lettuce salad on the plate to make the plate look full. Everyone was happy! The second time I made it , I substituted brown rice for the wild rice and used dried cherries for the craisins. Less fall like but we thought this rated 5 stars too.
This was good. At first, after tasting the filling, I thought the dish would be OK but I wasn’t anticipating making it again. After putting it completely together, I loved it. The nuttiness of the squash offset the saltiness of the filling. I added more cranberries. I also think it would benefit from a little extra cinnamon added to the filling as well as being sprinkled on the squash. I will make this again.
Very good. Used white instead of wild rice. Also used regular sausage and added maple syrup as suggested. Did have to cook longer than suggested. Will make again.
Very good, but it was a little too sweet in my opinion. I’m drawn to more savory main dishes, and this was not as much. The only change I made was to swap wild rice for brown rice. Husband enjoyed!
Good, needs a bit of salt, but the cranberries give it a great zing!
My family liked this fall dinner! I used regular bulk sausage and didn’t add any maple syrup. I used about a cup of cooked brown rice. Instead of using chicken broth, I added a can of cream of mushroom soup. No other changes..
This recipe was good and very easy. I followed the recipe except that I used quinoa instead of rice, added walnuts and melted a little cheese on top. The combination of ingredients was tasty but the flavor was just a little flat to me, maybe it was the sausage I used? Next time I’ll experiment with added spices, but otherwise a nice fall dish.
I made some changes due to taste and what I had on hand. I used Johnsonville Italian Sausages in place of the breakfast sausage, different spices and white rice. I also added a trinity (red onion, red bell pepper and celery). This was YUMMY, either way.
I thought brown sugar with onion and garlic would be wierd, but this was very yummy. I wanted to add pecans, but I did not have any so I added some homemade whole cranberry sauce to the stuffing. This was a nice meatless meal.