How to Prepare a Spaghetti Squash

I wanted to share with you a picture tutorial on how to prepare a spaghetti squash. When I first started to change my diet there were quite a few things I didn’t know how to do, and at times it felt like my brain was so overwhelmed with things to learn. I hope this is able to help you a lot and is able to take one thing off of your mind to learn.

Before we start, preheat your oven to 350 degrees. 

Here is my spaghetti squash. I got four of them given to me from a friend and they are really small spaghetti squash. I bet two of these would equal one larger spaghetti squash. Even thought they were really small, they had awesome flavor. I’m so thankful for any gift, but I love a gift in the form of foods. 

Squash are very hard to cut and can be dangerous. So first of all, please be careful!

I always start cutting any spaghetti squash (or really any other fall/ winter squashes) by cutting a small piece off of the side. It helps with stabilization of the squash so it doesn’t slip as you cut it. You can also cut off the stem and stabilize it that way too.

You will want to cut the squash in half the long way. I use a large chef’s knife and work very slowly and exercise a lot of caution in cutting it. This is what your squash will look like when you cut it in half. It is full of seeds and the insides.

Next, take a spoon and scoop out all of the seeds and “guts” of the squash. You want to scoop out as much as you can. When the spoon hits the hard part of the squash and you can’t scoop out anymore, it’s ready and should look like my picture below.

Lay the squash on a cookie sheet and bake for 60 minutes

Once the squash comes out of the oven let it cool down a bit for about 15 minutes. It is very hard to handle the hot squash right out of the oven. You will thank me for telling you to wait a bit, then you won’t burn your hands. Using a fork, scrape the spaghetti squash out of the shell. It will resemble spaghetti and will scoop out like little noodles. 

It looks a lot like spaghetti, right? It just scoops right out super easily. 

You can use this as noodles in any recipe or make Buttered Spaghetti Squash (recipe here)  and it’s like the old buttered noodles with parmesan cheese. You can use this squash immediately for a recipe or store it in an airtight glass container in the refrigerator for later. 

You can use this technique and recipe for any squash. I like to add a pad of butter to each piece of squash before baking. And instead of getting squash noodles like in spaghetti squash, you can scoop out other squash varieties in the shell.