How To: The Easiest Way to Prep, Peel, & Cube a Butternut Squash for Your Favorite Fall Recipes

Fall is the season of obnoxious food trends. You can't go out to eat or to the grocery store without seeing something pumpkin spice- or candy corn-flavored. Less annoying, but equally prevalent is the butternut squash.

For the next several months, we will be pelted with recipes for butternut squash soup, butternut squash risotto, stuffed butternut squash... and the list goes on. Butternut squash is everywhere. But how many people actually know how to prep the stuff?

That's where America's Test Kitchen comes to the rescue.

Cutting up a butternut squash isn't as hard as it looks—it's just not intuitive if you've never done it before. The first step is to slice off both ends and peel the skin off using a vegetable peeler (or a knife if you don't have one). Once it's peeled, cut the squash in half where the bulb meets the neck.

Now, cut the bulb in half and scoop out all the seeds. To cube it, cut the base into half moons, then cut each piece into squares.

To cube the neck, stand it on its end and slice it into planks. Cut the planks into strips, then the strips into cubes.

That's it. It's not the quickest process, but it's not nearly as intimidating once you know how to do it. With a little practice, you'll be flying through squash in no time. Check out ATK's video above for more tips.