Essential Winter Squash Equipment

In order to get to the sweet meat inside of winter squash, you need to cut it open, which calls for the workhorse of any kitchen: the chef's knife. Currently, choices of blade, handle, weight, and balance are endless, which means the cook has a good bet of finding the right knife for them. The blade of a Western-style chef’s knife is double-sided and is sharpened to a 20-degree edge. This thicker blade wedges food apart as it cuts, and the sharp curve of the blade makes it easy to rock the knife across the food as it cuts. It’s a great, all-purpose knife that no kitchen should be without.

Keeping a sharp edge on your knives will not only ensure easy food preparation, it’s also paramount for safety, especially when working with winter squash. A dull blade can skip off the surface of the food and cut you instead. These days there’s a multitude of sharpening options, but just like knives, it’s important to use the right sharpener for the job. When sharpening your knives at home, you have a few options. An electric knife sharpener features multiple grinding slots, each with a different coarseness of blade to control the amount of sharpening. However, these sharpeners can only be used for Western knives that have a 20-degree angle. Asian knives, whose blades typically have a 15-degree angle, require a different sharpener. A whetstone is extremely adaptable, because the cook holds the knife at a specified angle to match the blade; it does, however, take practice to master. When in doubt, it's always an option to have your knives professionally sharpened.

Not your typical kitchen utensil, a mallet can be very useful for breaking down the thick shells and tough skin of winter squash. Use the mallet to get the knife started cutting through the shell by tapping the back of the knife with the mallet. You can see an example of this technique in the Stuffed Acorn Squash recipe step-by-step photos.

Depending on the variety of winter squash, you can peel it like you would an apple—that is, with a vegetable peeler. You need a peeler with a sharp blade that easily glides through the peel of any fruit or vegetable. Peel the squash thoroughly in order to remove the outer layer, as well as the layer of fibrous white flesh just beneath the visible peel.

We typically use a dinner or soup spoon to scoop out seeds and strings from pumpkin, squash, melons, and other members of the gourd family. We tested a variety of gourd tools, but none of the tools proved better than the spoon at removing the strings and seeds from the gourds. A solid ice cream scoop also works well for this.