Roasted Spaghetti Squash

About this Recipe

The first time someone served me a meal of spaghetti from squash, I was flabbergasted. I thought they shredded the squash with one of those pasta machines and needless to say I was impressed. It wasn't until years later that I cooked my own spaghetti squash and learned that once baked it just transforms into natural spaghetti like noodles. Truly a miracle of nature. You really just have to bake and then scoop it out and serve.

Grandmother’s Tips for Spaghetti Squash:

1. For longer strands of spaghetti like squash noodles, cut the squash in half the short way and scoop out carefully with a big spoon.

2. If your squash is just too difficult to cut, then cook it whole and cut it in half after it has baked. Pierce it a couple places before baking.

3. Spaghetti squash is an excellent alternative to anyone wanting creative gluten free ways to enjoy a pasta looking dish without the pasta that can include the many yummy things that go on pasta like Tomato Sauce.

4. The most challenging part of cooking with squash for me is cutting them open. They are quite a hard vegetable and so you just have to be patient and careful to cut them without cutting yourself. A sharp knife is surprisingly safer than a dull knife when you are cooking since it is less likely you will press it hard in a strange way to cut through something.

5. The amount of squash you need to bake depends on if you are using as a side dish or a main dish. It is popular to use this as a substitute for spaghetti pasta and goes well with our Simple Tomato Mushroom Sauce Recipe.

6. You can eat immediatly or if you are planning to use it in another recipe, cover the bowl with wrap and place into the refrigerator. Use within 3-5 days.


Ingredients

(Print)

Makes: We did one 8-10 inch squash which would serve 2-4 people

Spaghetti squash

2 Tablespoons olive oil

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

2. Line a baking dish with parchment paper and spread the olive oil onto the parchment.

3. Cut the squash in half. If you cut it in half on the short side the spaghetti squash will have long strings but you can cut the squash in half either long or short.

4. We left the seeds in as it is very easy to scoop them out once cooked, but you can spoon them out before cooking if you like.

5. Place the squash cut side down onto the parchment paper and place in the oven.

6. Bake for 40 minutes.

7. Remove from the oven and flip the squash over. Let cool for a few minutes then scoop out the center seed part and discard.

8. Use a large spoon to scoop the spaghetti squash into a serving bowl.

ENJOY!

Return to this Roasted Spaghetti Squash recipe or check out more recipes at Grandmother's Kitchen

Is pasta a favorite meal in your household? If you want to try out different easy dinner ideas, squash could be the answer. It turns out that spaghetti squash isn't just called spaghetti squash for nothing, it's actually great to use for spaghetti noodles. Whether you are sensitive to gluten or you just want a fresh new option when it comes to spaghetti, this squash is perfect for making pasta dishes and other healthy homemade meals. Spaghetti squash noodles will absorb spaghetti sauce or any other sauce really well too.

Spaghetti squash is a vegetable from the group of cultivars of Cucurbita pepo. They can be white, yellow and orange but the orange squashes have high levels of carotene.

The outer layer is quite hard and so is the flesh inside when it's raw, but when it's cooked, the flesh becomes soft and breaks apart into long strands that look like thin spaghetti noodles. The noodles on their own taste quite starchy too which makes them an even better substitution for pasta noodles than other pasta substitutions.

Cutting the spaghetti squash can be tricky though because the outer layer is very hard. Even with the sharpest knife, the squash can be very difficult to cut through. The best advise we can share to cut your squash is going to be with to use a sharp knife and to patiently make your way around and through it. There are tips about first piercing the squash with a dotted knife line where you want to cut and microwaving for a few minutes to soften, but in fact don't use a microwave in our kitchen, so we do it the old grandmothers style, before microwave ovens came along. Also as in Grandmother's tip above, you and always just pierce any squash and bake it whole if there is no way you are going to be able to cut through it.



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