They grow up thick-skinned and sweet. Somehow these veggies taught themselves to defend their flesh during the cold weather months over the centuries, and while many varieties are grown year-round, fall and winter are their natural seasons.

Almost all love to be baked and lightly candied, meaning split or cubed and dotted with butter and brown sugar or honey, but they find their way into soups and stews and other comfort classics that get us through until the spring thaw. Some of our favorite varieties include:

Butternut
Perhaps the sweetest of winter squash, it’s relatively easy to peel and the dense flesh is void of fibrous strands, making it ideal to mash and puree, or for soups.

Acorn
No slouch in the sweetness department, the flesh is soft and moist and is a favorite for baking.  Its eponymous shape also lends itself to being split and used as a serving terrine for soups and stews and can be stuffed as well.

Delicata
One of the few winter squash with a thin and edible skin, which also happens to be festively striped along the length of the veggie. Smaller in size (a pound or less), with a slightly drier flesh and a sweet, nutty, almost corn-like flavor. Bakes beautifully.

Hubbard
So large it’s often sold in chunks, the Hubbard has a thick, bluish shell and a flavor so pumpkin that it is the preferred main ingredient for pumpkin pie. 

Spaghetti
Perhaps the least sweet of all winter squash, the spaghetti squash gets its name from its flesh, which can be removed after baking by shredding lengthwise with a fork, creating strands of squash that can be topped with tomato sauce or tossed with other vegetables primavera style.

Kaboka
The hardest shell of them all, but once you crack through; the flesh is firm and sliceable and holds shape no matter what you do to it. Ideal for baking in a mixed veggie mélange, perfect for stews and other things you like to cook for a while.