Italian Sausage Spaghetti Squash Casserole

Italian Sausage Spaghetti Squash Casserole

We are in that “it’s hard to find a good vegetable at the store” time of year, so when the hubs asked me to pick up some veggies on my last trip, I settled on a spaghetti squash. After making this, I realized I had forgotten how much I like this beautiful squash! But is sure is a pain in the you-know-what to cut open. Most recipes for this showcase the innards in its lovely yellow shell as the serving container, but after my hack job it getting it open it was best left to throw it in a casserole dish.

Aside from trying not to chop your fingers off cutting the squash in half and getting it baked, this is an easy dinner to prepare. Serve with a salad and garlic bread, and dinner is served!

Italian Sausage Spaghetti Squash Casserole

3-4 pound spaghetti squash
Olive oil
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 pound hot Italian sausage (mild if preferred)
1/2 onion, chopped
2 cloves minced garlic
1 14.5-ounce can crushed tomatoes
1/2 cup ricotta cheese
1/4 cup freshly-grated Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon dried parsley (or fresh if you have it)
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Carefully cut spaghetti squash in half and remove seeds. Brush with olive oil, then salt and pepper it to taste. Place cut-side down on a baking sheet, and bake for one hour. Let cool until you can handle them, then remove the “spaghetti strands” to a bowl, using a fork. Set aside and reduce oven heat to 350 degrees.

About halfway through the squash cooking time, cook the Italian sausage in a large skillet along with the onions and garlic until the sausage is cooked through. Add the can of crushed tomatoes and stir to combine, then reduce heat to simmer for about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile mix together the ricotta, Parmesan and parsley in another bowl.

Once all the players are in place, stir the spaghetti squash into tomato sauce, then pour into a 2-quart oil-sprayed casserole dish. Spread the cheese mixture over top, then the mozzarella. Bake in 350-degree oven for about 20-30 minutes until bubbly and cheese is melted. Let rest for 5 minutes before serving.

Italian Sausage Spaghetti Squash Casserole

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You Call This a Spaghetti Squash?

Spaghetti Squash Meal

My husband clearly does not read any foodie blogs or cooking websites, as he came home with the most pitiful looking spaghetti squash the other day that I have ever seen. It was barely larger than a grapefruit, and was riddled with so many brown spots I was worried it had contracted some unnameable disease. The sneaky devil even left on a business trip today and left the poor vegetable with me to deal with.  I was ready to throw it in the trash when I googled Brown Spots Spaghetti Squash and read that brown spots could mean it has fungus, or the seeds have sprouted inside giving it a bitter taste. But then I clicked a few more links and found what I was looking for. A recipe website stated that brown spots were okay as long as the squash was hard and not mushy. Good enough for me. I quickly gave the squash the feel test, and was confident it passed. So I took my chances on it and threw it in the oven for an hour.

Small onion for size comparison.

I was quite pleased with the results.

It had no bitter taste and shredded perfectly into spaghetti strands (albeit small ones) for a quick supper. The last time I cooked one of these my daughter was too young to remember it, and she was fascinated by the transformation of this ugly vegetable into pasta! Well, she called it “weird” but I took that as fascination. And she did eat her bowl of it.

Cooking a spaghetti squash is easy. Many directions call for cutting them in half and scraping the seeds before cooking, but since the master carver was gone I didn’t want to impale myself trying to hack through the almost unimpenetrable hard skin. I did use a very sharp knife first though to stab at it all around to make sure I didn’t cause some kind of yellow explosion in the oven.  I then put it in a shallow casserole dish whole and baked it for an hour in a 350 degree oven. I let it cool enough to handle, then sliced through it quickly in half and removed the seeds with a large spoon. I then used a fork to “shred” the spaghetti noodles out of it.

It was served with some homemade spaghetti sauce we had in the freezer as a main dish, but you could also serve it with butter and pepper as a side dish.

I leave you tonight with two thoughts. If the spaghetti squash is covered with brown spots, best not take your chances and leave it for the next person to come along and pick it out for the unsuspecting cook at home. I have also come to the conclusion that I need to get some new festive, dinnerware, dontcha’ think???