Recipes

Last night was one of those nights where I needed to eat and needed it to be ready in under 10 minutes. Looking through my not so full pantry, fridge, and freezer I didn’t see much. All I really had was a spaghetti squash, some frozen bolognese (leftover from Baked Ziti), and some fresh ricotta. Although I was a little skeptical, I decided to try cooking the spaghetti squash in the microwave and was pleasantly surprised – it came out great. The only change I would make next time would be to squeeze out some of the excess liquid after cooking, that you can see in the picture, but it tasted great and cut the cooking time down from 1 hour to about 5 minutes. Perfect for a quick meal or side dish. The recipe I am including is just for the spaghetti squash (I should have taken a picture of just that), but you can easily top it with just about anything. My meal which included 1/2 small spaghetti squash, 3/4 cup bolognese(3 pts), and 2 tbsp fresh ricotta(2 pts) rang in at 5 points plus total and completely hit the spot.

Weight Watchers Quick Microwave Spaghetti Squash
Points: 0 weight watchers pointsplus
Servings: 2
Serving Size: 1/2 spaghetti squash, about 1 cup
Nutritional Info: 42 calories, 0g of fat, 10g of carbohydrates, 2g of fiber, 1g of protein

Ingredients

• 1 small spaghetti squash
• Salt
• Fresh pepper

Instructions

1. Carefully cut the spaghetti squash in half and scoop out the seeds.
2. Season each half with salt and pepper.
3. In a microwave safe dish add about 1/2 inch water or chicken broth to the bottom of the container. Add the spaghetti squash halves with flesh facing down. Microwave for 4-5 minutes until the flesh comes out easily with a fork.

Option 2: Take the whole spaghetti squash and pierce it with a knife in multiple places, like you are cooking a baked potato. Microwave the whole squash for 10-12 minutes until you can easily pierce it with a fork. Carefully cut in half, remove the seeds, and scrape the spaghetti squash out.