Me vs. The Spaghetti Squash

One of my favorite parts about fall by far is squash. There’s seriously not a squash that I tried that I don’t love. Last night, I took on a Spaghetti Squash and decided to show you a step by step, similar to the one I did for a Butternut Squash.

This squash was kind of on its last leg because my sister fridge was exploding with squash from her CSA, so I gladly took it out of her hands.

First, preheat your oven to 400º.

Next, cut the squash in half lengthwise.

Next, scoop out the seeds/flesh from the middle. It’s a little different with a spaghetti squash than other types of squash because the whole inside of the squash is stringy, so you just need to make sure you remove all the seeds.

There will still be stringiness on the inside of it, but that’s ok!

Next, spray a baking sheet with nonstick spray, and place the squash cut side down on the baking sheet.

Put it in the oven for 1 hour (or slightly longer if you let it bake while you bike ride… not safe, kids. not safe.)

Flip the halves over and wait for it to cool slightly so its cool enough for you to handle.

Use a fork to scrape out the insides of each half of the squash so it looks like spaghetti.

Treat the insides just like you would with spaghetti and top with whatever you like! You can do it traditional style with tomato sauce and cheese, or go with garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper. It can be served as a main course if you top it well with protein, or as a side dish to accompany meat.

Last night, I used my spaghetti squash in one of my favorite ways to use spaghetti, but it often gets too calorie dense for me (slash not enough volume!) if I use it with regular pasta. First, I heated 1 tsp of olive oil and 2 cloves of garlic in a pot, and then added in the flesh from one half of that huge squash. Next, I cracked an egg directly into the pan.

I mixed it all around until the egg was cooked through, and then added ~ 1/4 of a cup of part-skim ricotta, and salt and pepper. When you cook any pasta (spaghetti squash or regular) and crack an egg directly into it, the egg coats the pasta and makes the whole thing feel more substantial to me. I LOVE it like this!

This whole bowl was 5 points (and would have been 8 and much less volume if I used regular whole wheat pasta and just one serving). 2 points for the egg, 1 for the olive oil, 1 for the squash (~ 2 cups, but 1 cup is zero), and 1 for the ricotta. SO good.

What is your absolute favorite way to have spaghetti squash? If you’re not a spaghetti squash fan (i feel like people either love it or hate it!) what is your favorite way to top regular spaghetti?