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What would your fave spices/herbs be for a good squash soup?

Ask Me Anything (Office Half Hour)

Dan Marek - Ask Me Anything (Office Half Hour)

Recorded

This event was on September 16, 2025

Join Chef Dan Marek in his virtual office as he welcomes all of your questions. This event was created for you and we encourage you to Ask Anything – from cooking techniques to course-specific questions, to how to turn your cooking passion into profit or simply hearing the perspective of a professional chef, Chef Dan is ready to answer them all.

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Question

Char Nolan

What would your fave spices/herbs be for a good squash soup?

Answer

Hmm. So I do love a good butternut squash soup. I typically will make them, you know, every fall. Uh, I usually do like a splash of like a silk and tofu kind of a topper on it as well. But, uh, for fall I'm usually gonna go for thyme as one of my favorite herbs to be able to go into that. I also love to do sage where I might, uh, put some sage leaves into a pan and just kind of crisp 'em up a little bit to be able to put some on the top. You can crunch 'em up if you want to, but I, I usually just put 'em on the leaves, just kind of around the top as well too. But thyme is definitely one of those go-tos that I would typically use, especially on a good squash soup. Um, so beyond, you know, what I would normally put in a squash soup, like a garlic and onion and my basic, um, you know, mere POIs of ingredients, a little time goes a long way. Um, and maybe a little bit of crusted, um, or, you know, sauteed sage leaves on the top for those two.

Dan Marek

Director of Plant-Based Culinary & Dev

*Dan Marek* is a chef educator who has been teaching vegan and vegetarian cooking for over 15 years. At Rouxbe, he is our Director of Plant-Based Culinary and Development where he helps develop content, classes and builds courses for many of our partners. Dan is a board member of Slow Food Austin, the Institute of Child Nutrition, and Conscious Capitalism. He has earned his BA in Journalism from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University and holds certificates in Nutrition from Cornell University. Prior to his role with Rouxbe, Dan worked with Whole Kids Foundation training teachers and food service at schools across the country on nutrition and culinary best practices. He also worked as a Healthy Eating Educator at Whole Foods Market’s flagship store in Austin, TX, was a personal chef for some of Austin’s elite business people, taught classes in culinary techniques at Austin Community College, The Natural Epicurean, and Le Cordon Bleu. Dan also regularly volunteers cooking or speaking about nutrition for the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, Marathon Kids, Health Alliance for Austin Musicians, and the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Austin and Central Texas.