It was one of those nights where we had a half pound of ground beef and spaghetti squash that needed to be used. And I was in a mood. I didn’t want to follow a recipe too closely or make anything complicated. But I also wanted our meal to taste good. And I don’t typically cook spaghetti squash so I didn’t have an index of past meals to work off of. So I made this. By pretending I was going to make lasagna. Only with spaghetti squash instead of noodles. And soft goat cheese instead of ricotta. And not really layered. So very loosely based on lasagna. But it was so so good.
Ingredients
- Spaghetti squash
- Olive oil
- Salt and pepper
- 1/2 pound ground beef
- 1 slice uncooked bacon, diced
- 1/4 red pepper, diced
- 1/4 onion, diced
- 8 oz tomato sauce
- 1 glug of white/red wine (either works)
- 1 glug of olive oil
- 2 leaves fresh basil, sliced
- 1 garlic clove, diced
- 1/2 teaspoon rosemary
- 1/4 teaspoon parsley
- 2 tablespoons soft goat cheese (like this)
- 1/4 shredded mozzarella cheese
- Handful of Parmesan cheese
- salt and pepper to taste
Directions
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Cut spaghetti squash in half. Spoon out the seeds. Cover the entire squash (both sides) with olive oil. Sprinkle inside with salt and pepper to taste. Place in oven, inside down, for 30-35 minutes. It should be done when you stab the skin and the knife goes in easily. But don’t get too stab happy because we need the shell intact to use as a bowl later.
- While squash is cooking, make the sauce. Brown ground beef until it is almost done but not completely done. Drain the excess fat. Then cut the uncooked bacon into the pan with the ground beef. I use a kitchen knife and cut the bacon into the pan.
- While bacon is cooking, add in diced red pepper, onions, and garlic. Add in tomato sauce, a glug of olive oil, a glug of wine, rosemary, and parsley. Toss in salt and pepper to taste. Simmer.
- Remove spaghetti squash from oven once cooked. Take a fork and pull the squash from the shell without destroying the shell, as you will be putting everything back into it.
- Place squash into a medium size bowl. Mix in goat cheese and shredded cheese. Add salt and pepper to taste.
- Spoon squash back into each shell. Top with sauce and sprinkle cheese.
- Place back into the oven and cook for 10 additional minutes.
- Enjoy!