Spaghetti Squash with Marinara

Living a low carb lifestyle sometimes might seem either boring or hard to keep up but there are so many wonderful options out there that makes life easy for me. This past fall I finally decided to give spaghetti squash a try. I’ve been eating a lot of zucchini noodles or zuddles as we call it but I got a little tired of it and wanted to have something different.

Many of my friends bragged about spaghetti squash and I wanted to give it a try. I love squash and I eat a lot of it during the fall. The good thing about spaghetti squash is that you end up having a lot of leftovers for the next few days.

This is a simple recipe, keep in mind that baking the squash does take time so give yourself a good hour and a half but the end result is worth it. I have cooked the squash two different ways, cut it in half and baked it in the oven, or whole also baked in the oven. Honestly, the second method (bake whole) is better for me because it makes it easy to cut the squash in half and easier to remove the seeds. I’ll give you both methods below.

If you’re baking the squash whole make sure you wash it and poke the skin of the squash all around. Once the squash is cooked it’ll be easy to cut in half, cut it longways. Allow 10 minutes for the squash to cool off before cutting it. Use a spoon to scrape out the seeds and use a cooking scissors to cut out the strings attached to the squash.

If you decide to cut the squash in half and then cook it, wash the skin of the squash and cut it long ways to get large string of the squash, cutting the square raw can be a little intimidating so I suggest you place a towel under the squash to create a little bit of a cushion to have better control of it and it does’t wiggle all over the place. Take your time and watch your fingers. The inside if the square will be a hard use a large spoon to scrape the seeds out, I use a cooking scissors to cut the string out of the squash if the spoon is not doing the job.

Once the squash is cooked, whole or in halves, allow the squash to cool off for about 10 minutes and use a large fork to begin stringing the squash. Start scraping as much as you can to the middle of the squash and place squash meat in a mixing bowl.

I personally love serve my meal in the skin of the squash, if you decide to do so leave some of the meat in squash. I also like to add ground beef to the marinara sauce but this recipe is without the ground beef.

Spaghetti Squash with Marinara

Recipe by CarolCourse: Dinners, LunchesDifficulty: Easy

Servings

2

servings

Prep time

25

minutes

Cooking time

1

hour 

15

minutes

Ingredients

• 1 medium size spaghetti squash

• 1 1/2 tbsp olive oil

• 1 tsp salt

• 1 tsp fresh ground pepper

• 1 1/2 cups of marinara sauce

• 1/4 cup shredded or shaved cheese or parmesan (optional)

Directions

• Preheat oven to 425F
• Wash the spaghetti squash, if baking whole poke holes all over the skin of the squash and bake squash for 45 – 50 minutes, flip it over half way. If baking squash in half, remove the seeds, glaze the two halves with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Bake for 30 – 35 minutes
• f spaghetti squash was cooked whole, allow it to cool off for 10 minutes, cut in half long ways and remove seeds. Glaze squash with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Bake for 10 more minutes top rack to caramelize
• llow squash to cool off for 10 minutes, using a large fork begin stringing the squash and remove as much meat as possible
• Bring marinara to a boil, add spaghetti squash, cook for a minute, serve and top off with cheese

Notes

• I remove about 1/3 of the spaghetti squash meat before placing the marinara sauce and cheese because half of a medium squash is too much for me. I save left over spaghetti squash in the refrigerator without any sauce for a day or two and make another meal with the leftover.
• This is great recipe if you are a food prepper for the week. It freezes very well and good for up to 3 months. Thaw it out and warm it up in the microwave or cooktop.

Enjoy!
XO Carol