Bariatric Foodie Play with your food
You made a spaghetti squash. Possibly your first. Congrats! Now let’s translate it into a yummy meal.
I love spaghetti squash because it makes a great family type meal. The divas know (intellectually) that it is not pasta, but seriously? Anything covered in sauce is going to be good. The trick is to make it a health benefit as well.
We like Alfredo sauce. A lot. Unfortunately, it has a gamillion calories, so I have to make some concessions to make it all work.
First off, I make it into a casserole. What does that do? Casserole = finite amount of sauce. With a traditional pasta dish you tend to dump sauce on it and not think about how much. With a casserole you add sauce then reheat it, which infuses that flavor into everything in the casserole, removing the need for a lot of sauce.
I could write a book on this stuff (wink), but I think I’ll give you the recipe now:
Spaghetti Squash Alfredo a la Nik
2 yellow squash, diced
2 zucchini, diced
1 small onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 lb. chicken breasts, cubed
Yield of one spaghetti squash
½ c. skim milk
½ c. grated Parmesan cheese (you can get the shelf stuff but grating your own is so much better!)
Fresh ground pepper (to taste) and sea salt
½ a jar Alfredo sauce (I use Ragu reduced fat)
4 o 5 slices of Provolone cheese
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Spray down a sautee pan with nonstick and cook chicken breast cubes thoroughly and transfer to a large mixing bowl.
In the same pan, sautee both types of squash and onions until just tender. Add garlic and mix well. Transfer to same bowl as chicken.
Turn burner down to low and add milk, scraping up the bits at the bottom of the pan. When the edges of the milk begin to bubble, add the Alfredo sauce, mix well and warm through.
Add spaghetti squash to the large mixing bowl and mix chicken and veggies completely.
Add the Alfredo sauce and mix into the veggie mixture thoroughly. Transfer to a 13×9 casserole dish.
Top with slices of provolone cheese and bake for 30 minutes or until cheese is melted and bubbly.
This is a seriously yummy dinner. And here’s the kicker. When you give it to the kids…and they wolf it…you’ve snuck not one, but THREE veggies into their meal!
I let that fact slip to La Grande Diva a few days ago. Messed up her whole world.
And THAT…my lovelies…is what I call playing with my food!
Have a great weekend!
You are awesome! I'm imagining small chunks of chicken breast in it too. I think this weekend I'm going to have to make my way to the farm stand to pick one up. I LOVE your blog!
Hadda double check my recipe before posting! There already IS chicken in the recipe! You can cube it any size you like and it will still turn out wonderful. If chicken bugs you, marinade in greek yogurt in a baggie while you're at work. Your stomach will thank you!
See thats what I get for rushing 🙂
I showed my wife the recipe tonight. She's on board. Tomorrow we're off to the farmers market to grab one. I'm sooo excited!
Oh and the trick with the yogurt. It's my favorite "make meat friendly" trick 🙂 Fage actually picked that idea as a Friday four word winner and I won a months supply of their yogurt! 🙂
I made this tonight! I put my own spin on it. I'm going to blog my way but I'm going to put a link to your blog since you really do deserve all the credit! Thank you soo much!
I LOVE it when folks put their own spin on a dish! Way to go! Can't wait to see what you did.
All I gotta say is this was my first experience EVA with spaghetti squash. Lemme just tell you, I LOVED IT. And so did the hubbs and my 2 year old daughter. I'm planning on eating it all week for lunches. Thanks for this great recipe!!
Did you cook your spaghetti squash first or no? I am wanting to make this tonight but unsure of how with the squash cause I thought if u baked it once and then added it to your casserole and bake it again wouldn't it be soggy? Thanks
I was wondering the same thing about the spaghetti squash
Thank you for all the awesome recipes!
If you want something to sub in instead of alfredo sauce, use blended cottage cheese with garlic. It has the same texture, but a fraction of the fat, and the little cottage cheese chunks are gone. We just use our magic bullet to blend ours.
Cool suggestion! I would add, though, that you might want to use some parmesan cheese and spices as well. I've tried that and didn't find cottage cheese alone to taste like alfredo sauce but if you add just a bit of parmesan, that garlic you mentioned, some Italian spices and black pepper, it is quite good! I think it tastes more like ricotta than Alfredo but good is good. Thanks for the suggestion!
what is the calorie count and the protein and all that on this
Okay. Mine is in the oven…hope it passes the kid test!
Amazing! Made it for dinner and family loved it.
OMG!! I LOVE this…… So yummy!!!