1 teaspoon black pepper<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nPreheat the oven to 375\u00b0F.\nTrim the ends off the squash and slice the squash into \u00bc-inch-thick rounds. Slice the cherry tomatoes in half. Dice the onion into \u00bd-inch pieces. Set aside each vegetable separately.<\/p>\n
Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a large straight-sided skillet over medium-low heat. Add the onion. Use a Microplane to grate the garlic cloves directly into the skillet, or add the garlic paste. Saut\u00e9 until the onions become translucent and the garlic is fragrant, 3 to 4 minutes.<\/p>\n
Add the tomatoes, 1 teaspoon of salt, and pickled jalape\u00f1os and continue to cook for 5 to 6 minutes, until the tomatoes are just softened but not de\ufb02ated. Transfer the vegetables to an 8 \u00d7 8-inch (20 \u00d7 20 cm) baking dish.<\/p>\n
Wipe the skillet clean with a paper towel and pour in another tablespoon of the olive oil. Set the skillet over high heat. Once the oil begins to shimmer and smoke, add the squash, trying to keep it to one layer, and let it sit undisturbed for about 2 minutes. After the squash looks lightly charred on the underside, shake the pan, moving other squash slices to make contact with the skillet. Continue cooking on high heat for 2 minutes at a time, until most of the squash is lightly charred.<\/p>\n
Transfer the charred squash to the baking dish. Add the cashew cream and 2 teaspoons salt. Tear half of the basil leaves into small pieces and sprinkle over the top. Stir everything together until totally combined.<\/p>\n
Combine the breadcrumbs, the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil, the nutritional yeast, dried oregano, 1 teaspoon salt, and the pepper in a small bowl. Sprinkle the breadcrumb mixture over the squash.<\/p>\n
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the casserole is bubbly and the breadcrumb topping has turned golden brown. Let cool for a few minutes before sprinkling with more freshly torn basil. Serve warm.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n
Recipes excerpted from Make It Plant-Based! Southern<\/em> by Mehreen Karim (Workman Publishing). Copyright \u00a9 2025. Photographs by Emma Fishman.<\/p>\nBack to Food Article<\/a><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"View recipe<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":16634,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[209,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fall-2025-recipe","category-recipe"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16656"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16660,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16656\/revisions\/16660"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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