It’s winter and squash is in season! I LOVE squash, and it’s such a versatile vegetable to cook with. You can boil it, roast it, stuff it, shred it, mash it, literally anything you think of!

This recipe was not even made on purpose. I had decided to make a quinoa, rice and cabbage salad the day before, and then I realized that I had an extra kabocha squash sitting in my house. So, I roasted it, and decided to stuff it with the quinoa and cabbage!

This is a great vegan option to bring to holiday dinners. Not only does it taste good, but it’s colorful and appealing to all types of diets! Try bringing it to your holiday meal and see how much people like it!

This dish can be eaten cold or hot, depending on your tastes. You can prepare the dish altogether for the quinoa to still be warm when stuffing the squash, or you can do it in two days, like I did.

Regardless of what you decide to do, I’m sure it will come out perfect, so…let us begin!

You will need:

• 1 kabocha squash
• 1 cup quinoa
• 1/2 cup rice (or substitute more quinoa for rice)
• 1 cup purple cabbage
• 1/2 cup sliced radish
• 2 heirloom tomatoes
• 1/4 cup parsley
• 1/2 cup red onion
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp red wine vinegar
• couple sprigs of fresh dill
• pinch of salt and pepper

Step 1:

The first thing you want to do is cook the kabocha squash. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Slice the cabbage in the middle, and cut off a tiny bit of each end, so that the 2 halves will rest comfortably on the pan.

Brush the squash with oil all over, and set face side down on a pan to cook. Put in oven and cook for about 30 to 45 minutes.

Step 2:

The next thing you want to do is cook the quinoa and rice. You cook both the same way, 1 part quinoa/rice to 2 parts water. Cook until water evaporates, then remove from heat, about 20 minutes or so

Step 3:

While the quinoa and rice is cooking, you want to slice the cabbage, radish, onion, tomato, parsley, and dill. Add to a large container and mix together with the salt, pepper, olive oil and red wine vinegar. Set aside (or put in the fridge) while you wait for the squash and quinoa to finish cooking.

Step 4:

Once the quinoa is done cooking and slightly cooled, mix it together with the purple cabbage in the large bowl, and set aside.

Step 5:

By this time your squash could be done cooking. Take it out of the oven and flip it over to the other side. Take a spoon and scoop out some of the flesh, to hollow it out a bit more and make the hole larger for stuffing:

Step 6:

The last step is to start stuffing the squash! Spoon out the quinoa and cabbage mixture, and pack it into your squash. You can pile it up high to make a little mountain the middle.

And that’s it! Garnish with a bit of extra parsley, and serve! You can also use the cabbage, squash and quinoa mixture as a side dish too, as it tastes great on its own!

The purple cabbage, orange squash, red tomatoes and green parsley make this a very colorful meal!

This dish also saves really well in the fridge! Just make sure that you have a tall enough container!

Enjoy!