Squash Glossary

Acorn Squash

Any Green Bay Packers fan would love acorn squash because it comes in the team’s three colors: green, gold and white (though the dark green ones can be much darker in hue than the team’s forest green). Known for its compact size, one squash easily provides one or two generous portions. The defined ribs make an attractive vessel: the halves can be hollowed out after baking and used as decorative bowls for mashed squash, rice, soup or stuffing. Naturally sweet and slightly fibrous, acorn squash can be substituted for buttercup squash which is generally drier, or butternut squash which is nuttier.

Autumn Cup

Under its forest-green shell and sparse green stripes is rich, meaty squash so flavorful that its yolk-colored flesh pops in the mouth. Compact but substantial, this squash is a velvety joy.

Available September through December.

Australian Blue Squash

The hefty Australian Blue has teal-gray skin encasing bright orange flesh. The flesh is very similar in taste and appearance to a pumpkin; the two can easily be substituted for  each other. Australian Squash or Queensland Blue Winter Squash is also known as the Jarrahdale Pumpkin, named after Jarrahdale, Western Australia’s first timber town in 1872. It is also known for its farms, orchards and art galleries.

Baby Boo

Banana Squash

Ranging from 2 to 3 feet in size, the log-shaped squash has a faded cream or peach-colored exterior and golden, cantaloupe-colored flesh. It averages 10 to 12 pounds although grocers often sell them in more manageable cuts; it is common for banana squash in home gardens to grow up to 40 to 50 pounds or more. Bush Pink Banana Squash is a specific heirloom squash with pink skin and orange flesh, but is still a banana squash.

Available year-round, but peak season lasts summer through early fall.

Butternut Squash

The almond cream-colored gourd with a bottleneck shape, one of the more common varieties of squash, tastes like a nuttier version of sweet potatoes.

Available year-round, but peak season lasts summer to early fall.

Calabash

The smooth, pale green bottle gourd is multipurpose squash. Its white flesh is normally used in Chinese stir-fries or dried as strips in Japan. In Central America, its seeds are roasted and ground, then incorporated into a rice, cinnamon, and almond-based drink. The calabash’s dried shell can be used as bowls, containers, smoking pipes, bird houses or ornaments. As musical instruments, they are made into maracas and the seeds inside rattled for percussion. Their hollow chambers allow for use as a string instrument, and can they also be turned into a drum. But perhaps the most unusual use is among the natives of New Guinea, where men wear it as a koteka, or a penis gourd or sheath, to cover their genitalia. The calabash can also be teardrop-shaped and many cultures add weights to the squash to help elongate it and create the typical bottle shape.

Available late summer and throughout fall.

Carnival Squash

This beautiful squash has a festive pattern with brush-like stripes of deep orange and specks of green. The meat inside is a golden yellow color similar to butternut and golden sweet potatoes, and is even creamier.

Chayote Squash

Also called Christophen squash or a vegetable pear, the chayote was originally cultivated in Central America. The pale green squash is mild-tasting: refreshing like a cucumber, tender like zucchini, but crisp like an apple. Like zucchini, it can be eaten or prepared almost in any way. Try munching on it raw, over salad, or deep-fried like tempura.

Cheese

Chinese Okra, Luffa Gourd or Silk Melon

The Chinese okra tastes and cooks similarly to zucchini. Neither needs to be peeled or seeded. Look for the young ‘uns—older Chinese okra tends to be bitter, and the rough ridges and spine only become tougher.

Cinderella

This medium-sized round squash with a red-orange exterior and thin green streaks is also known as the red etampes. Although perfectly edible, most use the Cinderella pumpkin as an ornament.

Cucumber

Cylindrical and green, cucumbers are popular choices for added crispness to salads, snacks, sushi rolls, or sandwiches. When cooked, they are tender, but their taste remains mild unless pickled. They are equally refreshing in soups, as a pureed sauce, and in ethnic dishes like the Greek cucumber and yogurt salad, tzatziki. There are different varieties of cucumbers, but the main difference lies in the skin and seeds. An old wives’ tale has it that either the seeds or bitter skin causes people to burp, which is why “burpless” varieties were developed with thin skins and virtually no seeds.

Cucuzza

“Cucuzza” is the general term for squash in Italian, so it makes sense that the cucuzza is also called Italian squash. Its long, curved and bottom-heavy body also earned it the title of “bottle gourd.” It can be prepared just like zucchini and has the same tender, mildly sweet characteristics.

Delicata

This oblong squash has lemon-colored skin streaked with green or orange. The meat is a cross between butternut and sweet potato, so much so that it is also called sweet potato squash. It is also known as Bohemian squash.

Eight-Ball Squash

The fattened, round eight-ball squash from California is a spherical hybrid of zucchini. Sharing the same dark, speckled green skin and plump insides, this squash can be served the same way as zucchini.

Gold Nugget

Similar to a hand-size pumpkin, this dull-skinned squash (the dull skin indicates maturity) is as deep orange inside as it is out. Noted for its blander taste compared to other squashes, gold nugget lends adapts itself to a variety of flavorings.

Green-Striped Cushaw

This white squash, mottled and striped with green, is crookneck-shaped and dense. Its yellow flesh is best suited for pies and fillings because it is slightly sweet, but thick and coarse. It tastes very much like a pumpkin, and could be an even better alternative.

Hubbard Squash (Blue, Golden, Green, or Gray)

Large and bumpy like a misshapen teardrop, this squash is notable for its wart-covered exterior and its peach-colored flesh. Hubbards are generally uniform in color, although the gray ones have a dusty appearance. The flesh is moist, but is best prepared boiled or baked and then puréed. Longer cooking helps breakdown its fibrousness and evaporates some of the excess water.

Kabocha Squash

“Kabocha” is the general term for squash in Japanese, but this Japanese squash also goes by the name ebisu, delica, hoka and (you guessed it) Japanese squash or Japanese pumpkin. The mossy green rind with spotted streaks of gray-teal encase tender, sweet pumpkin flesh, but without the stringy fibers.

Lumina

A round, white squash that is sometimes carved like a pumpkin for decoration.

Available in the fall and throughout winter.  

Orangetti Squash or Vegetable Spaghetti

The pale, orange-fleshed cousin of the spaghetti squash shares the same quality of separating into long spaghetti-like strands as it cooks. The watermelon- shaped squash is golden and smooth, and its delicate strands can be cooked like conventional squashes. But it is especially impressive piled on top of a plate, like real pasta.

Pattypan or Sunburst Squash

Pumpkin

Drier, coarser and more strongly flavored than most other squash, pumpkins are renowned harbingers of of autumn for Halloween as Jack-O-Lanterns. They are mostly ornamental; most people who bake with pumpkin do so with the canned variety due to the time demands of preparing the fresh, fibrous flesh. There are many pumpkin variations, such as Jack-Be-Little, Gold Dust, Wee-Be-Little, Lil-Pump-Kee-Mon and White Pumpkins (Valenciano, Cotton Candy, Baby-Boo).

Red Kuri Squash or Uchiki Kuri Squash or Orange Hokkaido

With butter-colored flesh that is smoother than butternut, this teardrop-shaped squash with an intense, sunset-colored rind has a pronounced, distinctive chestnut flavor. It makes it a unique soup base that lends itself to many pairings with other ingredients.

Spaghetti Squash or Vegetable Spaghetti

This watermelon-shaped squash is known for flesh that separates into long, blond, spaghetti-like strands as it cooks, which lends itself to any recipe that wheat pasta would. The strands can be used in salads, casseroles or on a plate with sauce. Mellow-tasting with a slight crispness not found in pasta, it’s fun to halve the squash lengthwise and rake strands out of its naturally oval shell. The yellower the rind, the riper the squash.

Summer Squash

Thin-skinned squash with taut skin that bruises easily. Examples include zucchini and yellow squash like the crookneck squash at the right. They have a relatively short shelf-life: two weeks in the refrigerator. Different varieties of summer squash are found in yellow, green and white.

Sweet Dumpling

The cream or daffodil-colored rind of this pretty squash boasts thick deep ribs, which are lined with green or orange. It lives up to its name for being sweet and tender. The petite squash can be held in one hand, making it a “dumpling” in comparison to other squash with ribbed, pumpkin-type shapes. It’s a great size for roasting or baking as individual servings.

Turban

Turban are distinctively shaped like a sultan’s turban and can be strikingly colored. They vary from orange, red, green, and white, sometimes combining all four. The yellow flesh reminds some of hazelnut, and its good size makes a wonderful bowl for an individual serving of soup when ut is hollowed out. The bottom can be cut off to be hollowed out or stuffed. 

Winter Squash

Winter squash have hard, thick rinds—examples include pumpkins and acorn squash. Kept in cool, dark places, they will have a shelf life of up to three months.

Yellow Squash or Yellow Zucchini

Yellow squash comes in a number of varieties including crookneck, straightneck, pattypan (see example above) and zucchini (photo at right). The crookneck has a curved, bottleneck, while the straightneck is straight. Pattypan are small top-shaped squash with scalloped edges. Like all summer squash, they are marked with thin skin that does not need peeling, and are usually tender and mildly sweet.

Zucchini

Often paired with its cousin, yellow squash, zucchini is one of the most popular summer squashes. Its mild flavor is versatile; it can be eaten raw, grilled, fried, sautéed, baked, tossed in salads, in pasta dishes, on sandwiches, or even baked into bread and cake. Look for glossy, firm, dark green skin.