These butternut squash puff pastry cheese straws are easy to make and are a great way of adding a portion of hidden veg to a savoury snack.
I’m proud to say that this recipe for butternut squash cheese straws won the Readers’ Recipe Swap for Kids’ Parties in the Guardian on 6 August 2016 and was featured again in a piece about getting kids to eat more veg in April 2017.
Puff pastry cheese straws must be one of the easiest things out there to make. Simply roll out your pastry – or just unroll it if you’ve bought ready rolled – grate cheese over it, roll again, cut into strips, twist and bake. Hey presto – you have a delicious, moreish, if not particularly healthy snack.
But what if you add a vegetable into the mix? Is it still as easy to make? Do they still work? Are they still tasty, moreish and loved by kids?
The answer to all of these questions is yes!
Butternut squash macaroni cheese is one of our regular meals these days. Miss R won’t eat it so it’s not the perfect family meal for us, but seeing as R LOVES it and it’s pretty hard to get him to eat any vegetables, I make sure we have it at least once a fortnight. So when I was thinking about what might work in a cheese straw, butternut squash seemed like the obvious choice.
The first time I made it I put in far too much pureéd squash and they kind of exploded in a cheesy mess in the oven – tasty but not too photogenic. So I started again and this time the butternut squash cheese straws have turned out perfectly.
Here’s how to make butternut squash puff pastry cheese straws:
Puff pastry cheese straws with butternut squash
Ingredients
- 1 x 320g puff pastry sheet
- 100 g pureéd butternut squash - either steam it or roast it then blend. You could probably even use a jar of baby food!
- 100 g grated cheddar cheese
Instructions
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Pre-heat the oven to 200°C. Unroll the pastry sheet. Spread the butternut squash evenly over the top, leaving a little space around the edges, then sprinkle two-thirds of the cheese over.
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Fold in half and gently squeeze the edges shut. Roll the pastry very gently (otherwise the squash will escape) until it's about the same size that you had originally.
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Cut into 1cm wide strips, twist a few times and place on a non-stick baking tray. Scatter the remaining cheese over the top and bake for 15-18 minutes until golden.
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Remove from the oven and allow to cool. Best served warm from the oven but fine the next day too if stored in an airtight container.
If you like this you might like these other puff pastry recipes:
Beetroot, walnut and goat’s cheese palmiers
Pin butternut squash puff pastry cheese straws for later:
Wow – now that is sneaky!! But I bet they taste amazing. Love how you find such ingenious ways to get vegetable into your children 🙂 Eb x
They really do taste amazing!
In the oven…fingers crossed my snotty chicken pox son and his pox party cousin visitor like them!! Thanks for the inspo. Faye xx
Hope they go down well!
What a great way to sneak in some veg 🙂 Thanks for linking to #CookBlogShare
Thanks Hayley – you know me, always looking for ways to get my kids to eat their veggies!
Oooh these look lovely! Definitely going to have to give these a go – the Peachicks would love this!
Let me know how they go down X
ooh what a fabulous idea Mandy, they look brilliant and no doubt far tastier than any shop bought version.
I think so – especially straight from the oven X
These are brilliant!
Thanks Stacey! X
Can they be frozen?
Yes, they aren’t quite as nice as when they’re freshly cooked but they are fine.