One Pot Ground Beef Butternut Squash
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This easy one pot ground beef and butternut squash is high in protein and great for meal prep! A simple recipe with less than 10 ingredients!
This ground beef butternut squash recipe is a simple, delicious, one pot recipe that your whole family will love! A cozy meal that’s high in protein, filled with vegetables, and has fantastic fall flavor.
This high protein ground beef skillet comes together in 45 minutes and has just a handful of ingredients. Sweet butternut squash, mushrooms, cheddar cheese, and browned ground beef come together for the perfect bite.
If you are looking for an easy and healthy weeknight meal or meal prep for the family this fall, then this is the recipe for you!
Looking for other easy one pot meals? Be sure to check out some of our other favorites: One Pot Chicken Orzo, One Pot Taco Skillet, and One Pot Chicken Parmesan Pasta!
liz’s top tips for ground beef and butternut squash
- Before cooking, remove your meat from the refrigerator and let it sit at room temperature for at least 15 minutes. (This ensures that you aren’t putting ice cold meat into a hot pan, this will cool your pan down too quickly.) This will help you get a nice brown on the outside of the meat, adding flavor to the dish.
- Add some extra vegetables like frozen spinach or cauliflower rice for some extra veggies!
Ingredients:
Substitutions
Ground Beef: Ground turkey, ground chicken, ground pork, or even sausage will be great substitutions for this recipe. We like 85/15 ground beef. Feel free to use leaner ground beef depending on what you like.
Olive Oil: Substitute the olive oil for avocado oil, ghee, coconut oil, or beef tallow.
Sage: If you want to use fresh herbs, sub 1 tablespoon in place of the dried sage.
Mushrooms: Baby bella mushrooms and white button mushrooms are our favorite; feel free to try this recipe with portobello mushrooms or even shitake mushrooms!
Butternut Squash: Most grocery stores have pre-cut and cubed butternut squash. You could try acorn squash or delicata squash in this recipe as well, but the texture of the butternut squash is the best for this recipe. If you have ground beef and acorn squash, try Beef Stuffed Acorn Squash.
Cheddar Cheese: We shred our own cheddar cheese from large blocks of cheddar for the best melty dish.
Prunes: Prunes are just dried plums. Swap the prunes for dried figs, raisins, or dried cranberries. Omit the prunes altogether if you’d like, and it should not impact the flavor too much.
To Make it Dairy Free: Eliminate the cheddar cheese or substitute with dairy-free cheese. I have not tried this with dairy-free cheese.
How to Make Ground Beef Butternut Squash Skillet
- Preheat olive oil over medium high heat. Brown and break apart the ground beef for about 8-10 minutes. Remove from pan.
- Add in onions, garlic, mushrooms, and spices. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Add butternut squash and stir. Cover and cook for 5-7 minutes, stirring every few minutes.
- Stir in ground beef and dried prunes, cover, and cook for another 2-3 minutes.
- Top with cheese and cover to melt, about 2 minutes. Serve and enjoy!
What to Serve with this Recipe:
This recipe is a whole, balanced meal with healthy carbohydrates, protein, and fats. If you want a side salad to go with this meal, take a look at some of our favorites: Peach Arugula Salad, Strawberry Arugula Salad, and Spinach Salad. It would also be good with Brussels sprouts.
Storage
Storing: This ground beef butternut squash skillet will last in the fridge for up to 4 days in an airtight container.
Freezing: You should be able to freeze this recipe but the butternut squash may get a little mushy when reheating.
If you need more freezer friendly recipes check out our Fill Your Freezer Ebook with 22 easy freezer meals!
Reheating: You can reheat this high protein fall dinner in the microwave, toaster oven, oven or on the stove. We recommend reheating in a skillet on the stove with a little bit of olive oil in the pan.
Other healthy one pot dinner recipes:
Check out these Healthy One Pot Recipes or click here to grab our free healthy one pot minute dinners cookbook.
Ground Beef Butternut Squash
Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
- 1 lb ground beef
- 1 tablespoon chopped garlic
- 1 cup diced onion
- 2 cups mushrooms cubed (about 5 oz)
- ¼ teaspoon sea salt
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- 1 teaspoon dried sage
- 3 cups diced butternut squash ¼ inch pieces, about 1 lb
- ¼ cup diced prunes
- 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
Instructions
- Remove ground beef from the packaging, let it sit at room temperature for at least 15 minutes. (This ensures that you aren’t putting ice cold meat into a hot pan, this will cool your pan down too quickly.)
- Preheat a large saute pan over medium high heat with a teaspoon of olive oil until the oil begins to shimmer. Brown the ground beef and break apart with a spatula, cooking for about 8-10 minutes or until golden brown.
- Remove cooked ground beef from the pan and add in onions, garlic, mushrooms, and spices. Cook uncovered for 5 minutes, stirring frequently.
- Add cubed butternut squash and stir. Cover with a lid and cook for 5-7 minutes, stirring every few minutes.
- Add your cooked meat and dried prunes to the pan. Stir together, cover with a lid and cook for another 2-3 minutes or until the butternut squash is fork tender.
- Top with shredded cheddar cheese and cover with a lid to melt, about 2 minutes. Serve and enjoy!
Video
Excellent. Will make it again.
All their recipes are amazing but this one I keep making it over and over. I use ground turkey as I’m not a big fan of beef and it’s delicious.
Just made this. Again. Used ground turkey for the first time in it. Still SO good even with the turkey. I can eat this meal year round. It’s seriously one of my favorites
I added spinach/arugula mix and bok choy. It was delicious will definitely try again.
Delicious and easy! I swapped the mushrooms for spinach and added a little chicken broth at the end as suggested. It was a hit!
Instead of adding the cheese, I made a tahini sauce to put on the top with cinnamon, coconut aminos, lemon and water.
Looking forward to making this dish! Quick question – can I use a bag of frozen butternut squash in this recipe rather than fresh?
I haven’t tried that. I think it might be a little mushy, but should work fine! I’d thaw them a bit before adding if you can! Maybe microwave for a minute before adding to the pan?
Thank you Liz…I was concerned about the mushiness as well. I will look for ways to dry them. I figured I would have to thaw them and was even thinking about either partially roasting them or sauteing in a super hot pan to dry up the moisture. Frozen is so much more convenient for me.