Enjoy this butternut squash mousse parfait as a cozy treat. It’s a surefire pleaser for any vegans in the Thanksgiving crowd. But you don’t need to be vegan to appreciate its pumpkin pie vibe.
This creamy and delightful no-bake dessert is bursting with autumn flavors and boasts a secret power: silken tofu, which adds body and nutrition. This mousse feeds that sweet need and nourishes your muscles and bones.

💖What you'll love about this delectable dessert
Butternut squash has a naturally velvety mouthfeel after it is cooked and pureed. Plus, it's twice as sweet as pumpkin. That lovely texture and sweet taste are two qualities to treasure in a dessert!
Although tofu in a dessert may sound weird, silken tofu (please not the regular brick) is a perfect partner. It helps the dessert set and become mousse-like and plays up the creamy mouthfeel.
Of course, it increases the nutrition in the mousse without lending any flavor of its own.
You'll love that this mousse is so easy to prepare during what can be a season of kitchen productions! There's no fussing with egg whites or heavy cream or turning on your stovetop. The food processor does all the work!
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🛒 Ingredients
- Silken tofu
- Graham crackers
- Date sugar or regular sugar
- Butternut squash puree
- Maple syrup
- Cinnamon
- Ginger
- Allspice
- Salt
- Mini chocolate chips
Silken tofu: This inexpensive, shelf-stable soy protein needs no refrigeration until it's opened.
Graham crackers: Their toasty flavor has a comfort level that seems right with this seasonal dessert. However, you could just as easily reach for vanilla or chocolate wafers.
Sugar: To sweeten the graham crumbs, use some form of granulated sweetener. The recipe suggests date sugar, but use whatever you have in the pantry: regular white sugar, cane sugar, coconut sugar, or a granulated stevia or monkfruit are all fine.
Butternut Squash Puree: The bright orange flesh is ideal for desserts, it is creamier and less grainy than other squash. You can use canned if you can find it.
Also, if you don't want to roast or break down a squash, buy pre-cut or frozen cubes.
🍁Maple Syrup: A "must" ingredient! Pure maple syrup infuses the mousse with sweetness and the flavor conjures images of colorful falling leaves!
Cinnamon: This pumpkin spice ringleader is also a must. Look for a brand like (affiliate link) Morton and Bassett San Francisco or Simply Organic with lower levels of lead.
🫚Ground Ginger and Allspice: Together with the cinnamon, these spices are what make pumpkin spice. If you happen to have a pumpkin spice blend, you could sub it for all three spices.
🧂Salt: Fine sea salt, rather than coarse Kosher, works best in this recipe. A pinch of salt brings out the sweetness, which is important in this recipe. So, do use a little (not a lot).
Mini Chocolate Chips: Look for (affiliate link) vegan mini chocolate chips if vegans will be at the table. These add texture and scrumptiousness to the parfait! 😋
How to make it
Before you start making the dessert, wash your hands, lathering with soap, and rinsing with water for 20 seconds.
1️⃣. Place the tofu in a (affiliate link) strainer lined with paper towels and set the strainer over a bowl. Add another layer of towels and a heavy object, like a large can of tomatoes or a bottle of tomato sauce, on top.
Let the tofu press and drain for at least 10 minutes and up to two days.
2️⃣Place the graham crackers in a large ziptop plastic bag and smush all the air out. Lay the bag on the counter and turn the crackers into crumbs using a (affiliate link) rolling pin to pound and roll them into bits inside the bag.
(You can also use a food processor for this if you don’t mind the cleanup afterwards.)
Mix the date or regular white sugar into the bag of crumbs.
3️⃣In a clean (affiliate link) food processor bowl, place the squash puree, maple syrup, and spices. Pulse several times to blend and then scrape down the bowl.
Break the tofu in pieces and add to the food processor. Process, scraping down the bowl once, until it is incorporated into the spiced squash.
Transfer the mousse to a large zip top bag, pushing it down to the bottom of the bag.
4️⃣Cover the bottom of a half-cup ramekin or dessert cup with a thin layer of sweetened graham cracker crumbs. Snip off a corner of the bag holding the squash-tofu mousse, and pipe a layer of mousse on top of the crumbs.
Sprinkle a very fine layer of crumbs and some mini chips onto the mousse layer. Pipe another layer of mousse over this and top with mini chocolate chips. Repeat to make individual servings.
To make a family style parfait, use an (affiliate link) 8-inch square baking pan or a pie plate.
5️⃣Cover and refrigerate for three to four hours. Serve with a dollop of whipped cream or coconut cream.
Working with butternut squash
Butternut can be a tough squash to crack.
Many people split it in half and roast it in the oven, which gives it a warm, toasty flavor. Blasting a halved squash in the Instant Pot or the microwave are two quick ways to soften the flesh so it's easy to puree.
However, depending on the size of your squash, splitting it in two can require some muscle. 💪🏽
I usually break down a butternut by cutting it in half in the middle, which is easier than splitting it lengthwise. Then, I slice off the top and bottom and use a (affiliate link) sturdy vegetable peeler to remove the tough outer skin.
The squash is now ready to cube and use in many different recipes.
For this mousse, boil about two cups of cubes in water to cover until soft. Drain in a strainer and let sit until cool enough to puree.
Alternatively, grocery stores sometimes have canned butternut squash puree, especially in the fall.
👐🏾Squash hands
Wear disposable gloves if you choose to peel your butternut. This will prevent the astringent squash juice from staining your palms and making them feel tight.
I have not found any practical method of removing the yellow stains. Washing in warm to hot water and a good degreasing dish detergent does help. You could also try diluted alcohol and citrus-based solvents like Goo Gone or (affiliate link) Citra Solv.
You may need to (affiliate link) moisturize your hands thoroughly after working with butternut squash!
Variations
Please don’t try to substitute whipped cream for the tofu since the mousse may not set! 🙀 You're aiming for dessert, not a sweet soup.
You could substitute meringue stabilized with cornstarch if tofu is truly not in your wheelhouse, but this adds a difficult step to the recipe. Plus, the dessert is no longer vegan.
🥧Easy as...pie
If you don't want to fuss with the parfait layer process, dump the butternut mousse into a pie shell.
Keep it vegan with a nut or graham cracker crust (check the ingredient list if you buy a pre-made crust). It will also taste marvelous in a regular pie shell, homemade or store-bought.
A pie will not keep for as long as the mousse or the parfait. The tofu tends to make the crust turn very soft quickly, so plan on eating it the same day.
FYI: Melissa Clark of New York Times Cooking fame wrote in one of the NYT Cooking Daily missives that she prefers butternut squash to pumpkin for her holiday pie.
You could make this Butternut Squash Pie for Thanksgiving. If you keep quiet, I'm not sure anyone will know it's not pumpkin.
In this mousse recipe, there's no harm done if you swap in pumpkin puree for the butternut. In fact, here's a terrific easy Vegan Pumpkin Mousse recipe from dietitian chef Abbie Gellman with a great video.
Bountiful health benefits
You knew this dessert is about as “healthy” as they come.
Butternut squash is bursting with vitamin A, especially the phytochemical beta-carotene form of vitamin A. This antioxidant helps defend your cells against free radical damage, such as aging and perhaps, cancer.
Vitamin A is also great for your skin and eyes! 👀
It has quite a bit of fiber, too, which is good for your gut, weight, and blood sugar management. It's also rich in potassium, which can help with blood pressure management.
Tofu is an excellent source of potassium, too. Some other minerals in tofu are iron and calcium, and, of course, it's high in protein, so it's a boon for bone health.
This "dessert" is a good source of potassium for men and women.
Nutrient know-how:
- An excellent source has at least 20% of a person’s daily requirement.
- A good source supplies 10% of the daily requirement.
🍁Even the maple syrup in the recipe offers a few minerals to go with its unbeatable sweet taste and flavor.
Ground cinnamon is a spice that may help with well-being and healthy blood sugar. The caveat is that it can contain high amounts of lead. This article from Consumer Reports lists brands of cinnamon that have been recalled.
Consumer Reports also recently tested 36 available cinnamon brands and found very high lead levels in 12. Morton and Bassett San Francisco organic cinnamon (affiliate link) and 365 Whole Foods Market organic and regular were among several that had lower levels.
⚠️Buyer Beware when it comes to cinnamon!
FAQs ❓❔
Yes. They are basically interchangeable although you may want to add more maple syrup since butternut is sweeter than pumpkin.
Yes! Omit the crumbs and chocolate chips and snarf it as a plain mousse (topping such as caramel sauce, chocolate curls, or some sort of whip, optional).
Yes. It would be divine between layers of spice cake. You could also use it as the top layer of a holiday mousse cake by piping it on top of a baked, unfrosted cake round or square. Or pipe it into cupcakes as a filling.
Other recipes you might like...
Just in case you want to make your own pie crust, I offer a simple food processor recipe.
Speaking of pie crust, this chocolate cream pie has a homemade graham cracker crust recipe that is to die for. The no-bake pie is a rather decadent delight but also has a few health benefits because of the high amount of cocoa powder.
🍎Other good holiday desserts include apple crisp with an easy granola-type topping and apple crumble. The crumble is particularly good as a personal, individual dessert, but it's also yummy when made large and family-style!
Butternut Squash Mousse Parfait
Equipment
- medium mixing bowl
- small mixing bowl
- large plastic zip bag
Ingredients
- 6 ounces silken tofu soft
- 3.5 ounces graham cracker squares
- 1 Tablespoon date sugar, or regular sugar
- 15 ounces butternut squash puree
- 3 Tablespoons maple syrup, or use brown stevia/erythritol blend
- ¾ teaspoon cinnamon, see note below
- ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
- ¼ teaspoon allspice
- ⅛ teaspoon salt, fine Morton's or sea salt
- 3 Tablespoons mini chocolate chips
Instructions
- Wash hands for 20 seconds, lathering with soap and rinsing under running water.
- Place the tofu in a medium strainer lined with paper towels set over a bowl. Put another layer of paper towels over the tofu and weigh it down with a heavy object like a large pickle jar or a couple of canned goods.Set it aside to drain for at least 10 minutes.
- Place graham squares in a large zip bag and squeeze out all the air. Crush crackers into fine crumbs with a rolling pin.
- Add the date sugar to the crumbs and shake the bag to mix. (Regular sugar is fine, too.)
- Place the squash puree, maple syrup, and all the spices in a food processor bowl. Pulse a couple of times to combine. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and the lid to return any escaped spices to the sweetened squash.
- Scoop pieces of the tofu and add all to the food processor. Process until tofu is incorporated into the squash mixture, scraping down the bowl at least once. The mixture should be lighter in color and smooth with no graininess.Transfer the squash-tofu mousse to a large zip-top bag.
- Cover the bottom of a half-cup ramekin or dessert dish with graham cracker crumbs. Snip the corner off the zip bag and pipe a layer of the tofu-squash mixture over the crumbs. Add another layer of crumbs and scatter with mini-chocolate chips. Top with another layer of mousse, and then, sprinkle with chocolate chips.Repeat the layering process with five more ramekins. Just before serving, add a dollop of whipped cream or coconut cream.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Copyright © 2024 Jani H. Leuschel
Ruth Hall
What a great way to use abundant squash this time of year!