Ever since I discovered spaghetti squash, regular pasta has little to no appeal to me.
For me, plain pasta noodles don’t really taste like anything, and really are just a vehicle to deliver the good stuff: pasta sauce, cheese, and meat. I created this video because I think that seeing a spaghetti squash in the grocery store is pretty intimidating: How do you cook it? for how long?
You can’t really screw this up unless you severely over cook it, or under cook it (but if you under cook it, you can just stick it in the microwave, and you’re good.
General Directions:
- Preheat your oven to 450 degrees
- Carefully cut the squash in half, lengthwise.
- With a spoon or ice cream scoop, scoop out the seeds and other slimy muck.
- Place squash halves face down on a cookie sheet.
- Add water to the cookie sheet
in the video I do this on the counter, but in real life, I typically do this once it’s in the oven. It’s safer & potentially less messy that way - Bake for 45 minutes (give or take)
flip squash halves over half way through baking time. - The squash is done when it’s fork tender.
- Let cool for 10-15 minutes before handling
- Scrape squash flesh with a spoon into a strainer
not a required step, but sometimes with steaming the squash, you’ll get excess moisture which you’ll want to drain off.
Variations
- I have roasted the squash whole in the oven. Just place it on the pan & follow the same directions – you may want to quarter turn it every 10 minutes or so. The advantage here is that when the squash is whole, it’s difficult to cut. So, even though it was easier to halve when it’s already cooked, I found it more difficult to scoop out the seeds when it was already cooked.
- I have not added water. This will create a dryer squash, but the clean up is a little more difficult.
- I have microwaved the squash halves. It took less time, but was definitely more hands on. (put it in a bowl, cover with plastic wrap & microwave 10 minutes at a time until it’s fork tender.)
Video
(there’s no sound in the video)
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