In an attempt to maintain some creativity in my cooking, I’ve signed up for weekly delivery of a produce box. After winning a sample box from Front Door Organics through an Instagram contest, I’ve decided it’s a great way to inspire new recipes and eat a wide variety of fruit and veg. Also, it gets delivered right to my front door (insert raise the roof emoji).
Now that the local harvest is mostly done for the season, I can be sure to expect lots of root vegetables, squash and greenhouse produce. My acorn squash delivery a couple of weeks ago inspired this insanely good pasta dish. This week’s squash variety: spaghetti!
Did your dad ever call spaghetti ‘spaghooch’ when you were growing up? Mine did. Awesome right?
This baby was large and in charge. Normally, I’m a fan of roasting my squash but the skin on this one was like a super hard shell and I couldn’t cut it in half. Into the microwave it went. It also yielded about 7.5 cups of cooked flesh! I kept what I didn’t use for this recipe to test another squash recipe which is possibly coming to a blog near you very soon.
Once you’ve got the flesh scraped out, this recipe has very little hands-on cooking time. A little sautéing, a little whisking and voila, a warm and cozy side dish.
The mixture is quite wet before it goes into the oven. Don’t fret, it’ll work itself into a perfectly cheesy and satisfying consistency during cook time.
Serve alongside, well, anything!
Erin
Spaghetti Squash Gratin
Serves
4-6
Prep time
20 minutes
Cook time
40 minutes
Total time
1 hour Ingredients
Directions
To cook squash:
1.
Roast (cut squash in half, remove seeds and bake cut side down at 400F for about 40 mins) or microwave (pierce skin with sharp knife all over, cook for 10-15 minutes, depending on size, rotating squash halfway through).
Gratin
2.
Preheat oven to 375F. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onion and sauté until soft, about 4-5 minutes. Add garlic and sauté for additional 1-2 minutes. Add squash, about ¼ tsp salt and ⅛ tsp pepper, sauté for additional 3 minutes. Remove from heat.
3.
In a large bowl, whisk milk, eggs, approximately ½ tsp salt and ⅛ tsp pepper (or to taste). Add squash mixture and ½ cup cheese and stir until well combined.
4.
Transfer mixture into an oiled baking dish (picture is a 1.4L Corningware). Bake for 35-40 minutes until golden brown.
Joanna says
I just made this and accidentally overcooked the garlic until it got pretty brown (ok really brown), and it was still delicious. And microwaving the squash instead of broiling it was brilliant – waaaay easier and faster. I’m going to make this again. Thanks Erin!
howt1653 says
Love it when a recipe works despite a wee mistake or two – nice work! So glad you you liked it!