Spaghetti Squash

This delicious and nutritious dinner is a family favorite, in fact, this pasta loving family is easily becoming as fond of this special “faux” pasta as much as the real deal! I encourage you to think “outside of the box” when cooking pasta dishes and add whatever veggies, meats, and sauces you have available.

Heat your oven to 450.

Cut a spaghetti squash in half lengthwise. Brush it with olive oil, sea salt, pepper, smoked paprika, and garlic powder. Cover a cookie sheet with foil and roast your squash flesh down for 40 minutes and then let cool. In this particular dish, I added chopped broccoli and 2 cups grape tomatoes to my cookie sheet the last 10 minutes to give them a roasted texture.

I then made my sauce, but here is where you can make it your own depending on your taste preference. You can heat up a jar of marinara or open up a container of store-bought pesto. In this case I decided to do a light olive oil sauce. I warmed 1/3 cup of olive oil and 4 T. butter in a medium pan and then added 3 chopped garlic cloves and 1/4 tsp. red pepper and sautéed until garlic was golden. I then added broccoli, tomatoes, and a couple of handfuls of chopped spinach to the sauce. I also squeezed half a lemon to this mixture and then brought my sauce to a low simmer. While making the sauce, Mark threw a chicken breast on the grill and then chopped it up.

Here’s the fun part. When squash is cool enough to handle, take a fork and shred your squash separating it from the shell (it will have the look of spaghetti) and then add to your sauce mixture. I then added a bunch of finely chopped fresh basil and mixed the squash and sauce together. I added the chopped chicken and topped with Parmesan. Serves 4.

Enjoy carb-free Italian!

Ingredients:
1 Spaghetti Squash
Seasonings of choice
Sauce of choice (marinara, pesto, olive oil)
Veggies/meats of choice
I used:
1 broccoli crown
2 tomatoes, chopped
4 handfuls chopped spinach
1 grilled chicken breast
Chopped fresh basil
Parmesan cheese
(for my sauce: 1/3 c. olive oil, 4 T. butter, 1/2 squeezed lemon, 3 chopped garlic cloves, 1/4 tsp red pepper)