Spaghetti Squash with Tomatoes and Zuchini

I love using vegetables as noodles. It’s a weird thing but I really love pasta sauce, I could happily eat it every day and it’s a great way to add vegetables into your life. One of my favorite ways to indulge this weird love is to use spaghetti squash. Spaghetti squash is extremely low in calories and in carbohydrates so you can kinda have as much as you want, which I love.

This recipe is a bit of a use-up one, I get a big tray of grape tomatoes from Costco pretty much every week to eat in salads and with meals. Sometimes they start going wrinkly before I’m ready to eat them, which is a sign in my books that it’s time to make this recipe. For that reason, since the tomatoes could go to waste otherwise, I don’t include them in the costing of this meal when I make it myself. That said, I know not everyone is going to have near-off tomatoes needing eaten, so I’ve included it in this recipe’s cost calculation. I also will toss random veggies that need eaten in this sauce sometimes, too. In this iteration, it was a mini zuchini but don’t feel like that’s necessary. Just use up what you need to.

Spaghetti Squash with Tomatoes and Feta

Serves 2 at $2.82 per serving

1 spaghetti squash – $3.81

~12 grape tomatoes- $1

1 mini zuchini- $0.83

Pantry Items: 3 cloves of garlic, salt, pepper, olive oil, chili flakes

Step one: Turn your oven on to bake at 375 degrees. Carefully cut your squash in half from top to bottom as shown. Using a spoon, take out all of the seeds and fibrous strings, but be careful to not start tearing out the flesh.

Once your squash is prepped, place it face up in an oven safe baking dish, drizzle with olive oil, and season liberally with salt and pepper. Once your oven is preheated, pop your squash in and set a timer for approximately 30 minutes- take it out when it is fork tender.

Start getting your sauce prepared by mincing your garlic. This is truly to taste and preference- this is all just simple, fresh ingredients presented in a fashion that is unencumbered by gratuitous fats, carbs or even cheese so I like to season liberally and have a good amount of garlic. Once your garlic is minced, put it in a small frying pan with olive oil, salt, chili flakes and pepper to start softening your garlic.

While your garlic softens, halve your grape tomatoes and cut your zuchini (or other assorted use-up vegetables) into similarly sized pieces. Start off by tossing your tomatoes into the pan to start getting warm- this is the important part because you need to squish them to get their juice and seeds to come out. Once you’ve created some sauce by doing that, add in your other veggies to cook.