Spaghetti Squash Bake

Spaghetti squash has been all the craze lately. At least in my circle of pals and networks. I admit it seemed like a daunting task to make something with it to me. Seemed like such a foreign unfamiliar territory to dive into…. but my BFF Brianne passed this recipe she found on and I couldn’t resist! So I went for it. I thought it was super super tasty. The hubs (my constant dinner partner) wasn’t crazy about it, he just couldn’t get over the fact that it WAS spaghetti squash and not noodles used in the dish. But I think if he didn’t know that detail ahead of time then he may have mentally been on board lol. I honestly loved it. The recipe is for a regular spaghetti bake and we both substituted spaghetti squash instead of noodles.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground beef or ground turkey
• 2 spaghetti squashes (halved)
• 1/2 an onion diced (added this in, I love onion with everything)
• 1 can of spaghetti sauce
• 8 oz of fat-free cream cheese (maybe a little less I thought)
• 1/4 cup fat-free sour cream
• 1 cup of fat-free cottage cheese (original recipe we had called for 1/2 lb and this seemed like a ton to me??? So I just used about a cup)
• 1-2 cups mozzarella or cheddar cheddar cheese

*This recipe also called for a stick of butter (yikes) which the BFF and I both did without and then 8 oz of noodles which again, we substituted the spaghetti squash for but would obvs be great with regular noodles too. Your preference to do regular dairy items or fat-free!

Step One:

First things first….cut your spaghetti squashes in half. (Uhhh this was the hardest part of making the meal?! I’m not gonna lie, there must be some trick to this but like I said this was foreign territory so I just hacked away with a knife. Also I don’t own fancy knives which could be the problem.) Then put the halves, face down on a baking sheet and pop in the oven at 375 F for an hour. This temp/time seemed to vary on the internet for cooking the squash.

Step Two:

Maybe about 20 min. before the squash is done… dice up your onion and cook it with your meat and then pour in your spaghetti sauce. 

Step Three: 

Once your squash is done… take it out and shred it with a fork. It should shred right out of the shell into noodle like strands. Confession: I was on the phone chatting away with one of my pals while I was making this whole thing and so I totally forgot to snap some crucial pics! My bad! Totally meant to snap one of the after shred. But I was totally surprised at just how easy and how accurate it turned out. Was def impressed. Below is squash half after it cooked in the oven, ready for shredding.

Step Four:

Lay your spaghetti squash “noodles” down in a baking dish. In a bowl mix together your 8 oz cream cheese, 1/4 cup sour cream and 1 cup of cottage cheese. Stir it up till it’s a pretty smooth like consistency and then pour it on top of the spaghetti squash. Spread it all over. Then pour your meat/sauce mixture on top of that and spread some more. You could put some noodles down, creamy mixture, noodles, meat mixture…for more of a layered effect. 

Step Five:

Pop back in the oven for about 25 minutes. Take out and sprinkle your cheese all around on top and pop back in for 5 minutes or until cheese has melted. Bam….spaghetti squash bake. Again I thought it was way delish and am stoked my girlfriend passed the recipe on! I needed to step outside my comfort zone and get down with the spaghetti squash already. So glad I did!