This rich and creamy Butternut Squash and Sweet Potato Gratin is flavored with garlic, fresh thyme, and Manchego cheese.  The ingredients are simple but indulgent, making this a perfect side dish for your next holiday meal.

It seems like we just finished eating a huge Thanksgiving meal and it’s already time to start thinking about Christmas dinner.  Between the big holiday meals and all the Christmas baking I plan on doing, I think I’ll have to ask Santa for some larger clothes this year!  But hey, that’s what New Year’s Resolutions are for, right?  I’ll worry about dieting in January.

I made my first Butternut Squash Gratin for Thanksgiving 2007, and although everyone seemed to enjoy it, I really thought it was kind of boring.  That dish was made with butternut squash, heavy cream, fresh thyme, and Gruyere cheese.  I know, it sounds good.  But it was just lacking something.  Although I never tried making a different version, it’s always been there at the back of my mind, waiting to be revised.

Since I’ve been doing a lot of experimenting with sweet potatoes in savory dishes lately, I thought it might be fun to add some sweet potato to the Butternut Squash Gratin to liven up the squash a bit.  I also added some garlic to the cream and used fresh sage in addition to the thyme.

The first version tasted really good but I decided I didn’t care much for the sage.  I loved the addition of the garlic and I thought the butternut squash and sweet potatoes went together nicely.  The sweet potatoes added a great punch of flavor and just a bit of sweetness that really perked up the dish.

The final version of the recipe is still very simple, but the garlic and sweet potatoes give it that something extra I was craving.  And I really love the Manchego cheese (that idea came from EAT).

I think this would be a great side dish for either Thanksgiving or Christmas as I think it would go nicely with just about any type of main course you could dream up.  Although it might be a little too rich for anything but a special occasion, I do think most of us can handle a dose of heavy cream during the holidays!

Butternut Squash and Sweet Potato Gratin with Manchego Cheese

1 1/2 cups heavy cream
2 cloves of garlic, pressed
1 pound peeled butternut squash, quartered lengthwise*
1 pound peeled and trimmed sweet potatoes**
1 1/2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
3/4 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
2 cups shredded Manchego cheese (or Gruyère)

1. Get Ready: Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  In a small pot bring cream and garlic just to a simmer.  Remove from heat and set aside.  Butter a 9″x13″ shallow casserole dish or gratin dish of similar size and set aside.

2. Prepare the Ingredients: thinly slice the squash and sweet potatoes (no more than 1/8 inch thick) and keep them separate from one another.  Measure out chopped thyme, salt, pepper, and shredded cheese and have them handy. Stir the cooling cream to help prevent skin from forming.

3. Build the Gratin: In the buttered casserole dish, spread half of the sliced butternut squash out in a single overlapping layer.  Sprinkle the squash with 1/3 of the salt, pepper, and thyme and then about 1/2 cup of the grated cheese. Using half of the sliced sweet potatoes, build a new overlapping layer.  Again sprinkle with 1/3 of the seasonings and 1/2 cup of shredded cheese.  Using the remaining squash, make another layer and sprinkle the last third of the seasonings and another 1/2 cup of cheese (you should have about 1/2 cup cheese remaining). Use the last of the sweet potatoes to make one final layer on top.  Stir the garlic cream mixture then pour it evenly over the top of the gratin, being sure to cover the top layer of sweet potatoes.  Shake the dish gently to distribute the cream.  Sprinkle the remaining cheese over the top.

4. Bake the Gratin: Cover the dish with foil and bake in the middle of a 400 degree oven for 30 minutes.  Remove the foil, move the gratin to the top 1/3 of the oven and bake, uncovered, for an additional 20 minutes or until the top is nicely browned and the vegetables are tender when pierced with a sharp knife. You may also place it under the broiler for a few minutes if you wish the top to be a deeper brown (but watch it closely!). Remove from oven and let cool for 30 minutes before slicing.

Yield: 12 servings

Recipe Notes: *I used the neck of a medium butternut squash and quartered it lengthwise. Butternut squash can easily be peeled with a vegetable peeler. Measure out one pound of squash after it is peeled and the stem has been removed. Save the remaining squash for another use. **Peel the potatoes and remove the pointy ends (save them for soup!) so you’ll have more uniform slices.  You need about one pound of prepared sweet potato.

Related Recipes:

• Cranberry Applesauce with Fresh Ginger
• Sweet Potato Buttermilk Dinner Rolls
• Mashed Potatoes with Cream Cheese
• Sourdough Stuffing with Apples and Bacon
• Curried Turkey Salad with Apples, Cranberries, and Walnuts
• Apple Galette
• Red Velvet Cake

Around the Web:

• Butternut Squash Gratin from Daily Bread Journal
• Smashed Butternut Squash and Potato Gratin from Dressing for Dinner
• Pumpkin Gratin from Thyme for Cooking
• Sweet Potato Gratin from Anne’s Food
• Sweet Potato Gratin with Manchego from EAT