This is an all around great dish, whether it's served as a vegan main course or a holiday side dish. You can also serve it unstuffed as a salad, because the filling is just as good cold!
Preheat oven to 375F and lightly oil a small casserole dish.
Split open acorn squashes and scoop out seeds.
Cut a small slice off of the underside of each squash half so they lie flat in the pan.
Mix together the oil, maple syrup and spices and then baste the squash.
Bake squash until almost done (about 35-45 minutes)
Quinoa stuffing
Heat oil in a large pot over medium high heat.
Once the pan is hot, add the shallots and saute for a couple of minutes.
Add the carrots and cook, stiring often until the carrots have softened but still have a bit of bite.
Add the walnuts and cook a couple minutes more.
Pour in the maple syrup and cook, stirring constantly until the mixture becomes dry and caramelized. If the mixture starts to burn, turn down the heat.
Turn off the heat and add cooked quinoa, orange juice, zest, pomegranate seeds, parsley and spices then toss to combine.
Season with salt and pepper.
When the acorn squash is almost done, take it out of the oven and fill the squash with quinoa stuffing.
Bake until the acorn squash is soft and the filling is hot, about 15-20 minutes more.
Notes
You'll need approximately 2/3rd a cup of uncooked quinoa to make two cups of cooked quinoa. Follow the package instructions to cook the quinoa or make a big batch with our rice cooker method.
Prep ahead! The quinoa filling can be made 1-2 days in advance.
This recipe is designed as a four person main course, but it can easily be doubled or tripled for parties and used as a side dish.
If you’re serving this as a side dish, you’ll want to buy the smallest acorn squash you can find…in that case I’d say 3 acorn squash to one quinoa stuffing recipe.
The quinoa filling is great cold too! You can add cubed roasted squash to the cold filling to serve it as a salad. If you serve it like this, one recipe will feed 6-8 people as a side.