Hey guys, Teri asked for the recipe after I posted the photo a couple days ago, so here it is, it's long because I go into a lot of detail, but I assure you, it's really easy to make. Any questions, feel free to post em, and I'll get back to you.
Ingredients:
1 Spaghetti squash
Cooking spray to coat
Salt
Pepper
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Turkey tomato sauce
1tsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil (if pan goes dry before ready for tomatoes, feel free to drizzle a lil more, but this was enough for me)
1/2 Small Onion (if you’re a real onion lover, feel free to put a whole onion)
2 Cloves Garlic
500-550 grams~ Extra Lean Ground Turkey (1 package)
110 grams Fresh Mushrooms (I use white or cremini)
150 grams assorted Bell Peppers (I used red, orange and yellow)
1 can (~796ml) No Added Salt Diced Tomato
2 tbsp Tomato Paste (I used hunts original because it had the lowest calorie and sodium count out of my options at the grocery store, check your labels!)
2 Bay Leaves
Seasonings (Add what you like, leave out what you don’t! Experiment!)
Salt
Pepper
Paprika
Onion Powder
Garlic powder
Cumin
Oregano
Thyme
Basil
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 400F. Cut spaghetti squash in half lengthwise, remove seeds and “innards”. Line baking sheet with aluminum foil (to make clean up easier later), place squash on pan. Spray the flesh with an oil cooking spray or alternatively rub with a little bit of oil, season with salt and pepper. Bake/roast for 1 hour to 1 and 1/2 hours depending on the size of your squash. Squash is ready when edges are golden brown and flesh is tender when pricked with a knife. Once done, remove squash from oven and let sit to cool until outside is cool enough to handle (15-20~min).
While squash is roasting and sitting, you can prepare the sauce (It doesn’t take the full hour to make your sauce, I started about 30min before squash was to be taken out, but if you start early you can always let your sauce sit and simmer, or if you make it more in advance, just simply reheat before ready to serve dinner).
Finely chop onion, mince garlic. Using a high walled/deep large pan, drizzle with olive oil, and turn heat to medium to medium/high, give just a minute or two for oil to heat, add onion, garlic and ground turkey to pan, season turkey with your favourite seasoning, use what you’d typically put in your bolognese for a meaty pasta sauce (see list above for what I used, go slow, you can add more later). Break turkey into small pieces as it cooks.
Slice mushrooms, and chop peppers, add to pan when turkey is about 3/4 of the way cooked and stir through. When turkey is cooked FULLY, (you break a chunk and NO pink remains), taste test to see if you need more spices, it’s better to go slow with your seasoning as you can always add more at this stage, but you can’t take away!
Add diced tomato, tomato paste, and bay leaves. Stir to combine. Bring to the point where it starts to bubble, turn down heat and let simmer for about 10 minutes, taste sauce, add any extra salt, pepper, and seasonings to taste, this time I added about a tablespoon of oregano (because we love it) some extra garlic powder, pepper, and thyme. Adjust until it tastes great to you. Cover and simmer another 15minutes, or until squash is ready to serve.
Once your squash has cooled, take fork and run lengthwise along flesh, flesh should easily shred into long spaghetti type “noodles”, as you shred, transfer shredded flesh/“noodles” to a bowl. For the medium size squash that I used, the squash produced ~4 servings, two per half. Season shredded squash with a little extra salt and pepper, toss around in bowl so seasoned evenly.
Dish out spaghetti squash into pasta bowl, top with ladle of sauce, and serve! You can top with some fresh parsley if you have it on hand.
A serving of about 170 grams of the squash, topped with 275 grams of the sauce has a total of about 235 calories. At that rate, you can definitely go back for seconds, or have more sauce on your serving, or make yourself a bigger bowl. Keep in mind, that depending on the brands of ground turkey, and tomato products, your calories may vary.
I hope anyone who tries it out, enjoys it! Let me know if you give this a shot!