Spaghetti Squash Spaghetti

45 minutes || My rating: 10/10 || Difficulty rating: Moderately Easy

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Cut the squash in half the long way, remove all seeds and guts
3. Spray with olive oil and sprinkle garlic salt and black pepper
4. Place on a sheet pan face down and in oven for 30 minutes
5. While squash is baking, brown ½ pound of Italian sausage. Add 1 pint of sliced mushrooms until cooked down. Pro-tip, you may need to add some extra olive oil to the pan if your sausage isn’t very fatty; the mushrooms will soak up the moisture when cooking.
6. Add your favorite pasta sauce to the sausage and mushrooms. My favorite is the Italian Sausage Prego. Cook until hot on medium-low heat.
7. When squash cooked, flip over and check that it is soft (Pro-tip: poke your fork in it to check like a potato). Scrape the squash with a fork to break the squash up. It will appear stringy like spaghetti.
8. Place your sauce mixture into the squash, a couple spoonfuls will do in each.
9. Sprinkle mozzarella or provolone cheese on top and put back in the oven until cheese is melted, about 8 minutes. Serve hot.
   

More pro-tips:

1. The squash can get watery, so you can skip steps 8 and 9 and just pull the squash out of the skin. Be careful, it is hot!
   
2. You can microwave the squash if you don’t have time to bake it! Cut the squash the opposite way, remove the seeds and guts, place in a deep bowl with the cut side facing up, fill ¾ way up with water, microwave for 8-10 minutes. This will result in less seasoned squash, but you can always season after removing from the squash. 
   
3. To make this into a lasagna, mix cottage cheese (or ricotta if your into that) with Italian seasoning, garlic salt, and pepper. Put this mixture into your cooked squash before adding the sauce and shredded cheese. Cooked at 375 degrees instead of 400 degrees, and for 20 minutes to ensure the cheese is melted.