Spaghetti Squash 101

Monday, October 13, 2008

Spaghetti squash always seemed kind of weird to me.  A squash that could be a pasta substitute? What?  But curiosity got the best of me and I eventually gave it a try.  Now I’m sort of hooked.  It seems I’m not the only one, though, who was a little bit frightened of the spaghetti squash - most people I know have never tried it.

Apparently, spaghetti squash can be cooked in a bunch of ways - roasted, boiled, microwaved, or even slow cooked in a crock pot.  I’ve only ever roasted it, though.  It’s really simple: just preheat the oven to 400 degrees and poke a bunch of holes in the squash with a knife.  Put the squash on a cookie sheet in the oven, and roast it for 30 minutes.  You’ll probably get a brown spot on the bottom of the squash like the one in the photo - but never fear: the outside rind gets tossed.  It’s the inside of the squash where the magic happens!

If you would cut open an uncooked spaghetti squash, you’d find a squash that looks like any other.  It’s solid and orangey with guts and seeds.  But when cooked....well, I’m getting ahead of myself.

First, you’ll notice that the squash, as I said, has guts and seeds.  You should remove these, but try not to get any of the flesh - just the goopy parts.  The seeds, by the way, can be roasted like pumpkin seeds.  They’re very tasty!

Take a fork and drag it along the inner flesh of the squash.  The flesh pulls away from the outer shell in strings!  Just keep scraping, leaving the shell pretty much empty.  As you might imagine, letting the squash cool after roasting is important - I’ve burnt the crap out of my hands before trying to hang on to a squash while scraping the strings out.  Not fun!

So now you’ve got all these stringy squash innards - what to do?  Well, take a taste!  Spaghetti squash is good all by itself - it’s got a classic Winter squash taste with an interesting texture.  I know lots of people who eat it just with butter and herbs, or with tomato sauce.

My very favorite spaghetti squash recipe of all time is spaghetti squash and pork stir fry.  Tonight for dinner I made a variation of this spaghetti squash and mushroom gratin.

There are a million different ways to prepare spaghetti squash, all of them delicious!

Other ideas:

Spaghetti squash with spicy braised greens, raisins, and pine nuts
Spaghetti squash curry
Spaghetti squash with glazed chestnuts
Creamy spaghetti squash with asparagus and rosemary
Sausage and spaghetti squash
Spaghetti squash frittata
Sweet Potato, Spaghetti Squash, and Rutabaga soup
Spaghetti squash, Shiitake, Pistachio spring rolls
Lamb with Spaghetti Squash and Pears