I am sorry that I haven't had a post in a while. I went camping and have been really busy getting everything ready for going back to school later this month! It has definitely been interesting, and I am a little nervous but excited to see how my healthy eating habits will follow me into this next quarter of nursing school. Any help and/or tips in this department would be much appreciated!
Anyways, onto this fabulous staple in my meal plan. I have recently been making at least one spaghetti squash a week and using it for meals throughout the week. Spaghetti squash is a fabulous replacement for any pasta recipe! Some people like to add whole grain pasta to off set the squash but I find that it is perfect all by itself and you can save yourself so many calories by simply leaving pasta out all together! And I promise you won't even miss it!
What you will need:
1 medium spaghetti squash
1 can Light Ragu Pasta Sauce (Or other pasta sauce with 60 calories per 1/2 cup serving)
1 stick light mozzarella cheese
1 lightly breaded chicken breast frozen (I recently bought these from Schwann's and they are amazing and only 150 calories each. For those that need a good grocery find for this I would pick Perdue Lightly Breaded Chicken Breasts.)
Optional sprinkle of Parmesan cheese (I used the kind by Kraft)
I know I usually take a picture of all the ingredients, but I totally forgot to this time! If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment below...
First off, preparing the squash! (this is just a plain picture of spaghetti squash I found on Google)
I usually make the spaghetti squash before hand since it takes an hour for it to cook in the oven. I know that many people know how to make a spaghetti squash since it seems to be pretty popular at the moment. However, I just learned the easiest way to cook it and that is to preheat the oven to 375 degrees, then use a fork or other pointy kitchen object (I used a corn on the cob holder) to poke holes throughout the entire squash. Then put the squash in a baking pan with some water on the bottom. After that wrap the whole squash pan with tin foil and place in the oven, let it bake in there for an hour. Once it is done baking take it out and let the squash cool off a bit, then cut the squash in half, scoop out the seeds, and use a fork to scrape in the sides of the squash. The end results are strands of squash that look almost identical to cut up spaghetti pasta!
Okay so now the squash is done and you have your "pasta" part of this dish out of the way.
The next thing you will need to do is preheat the oven to cook your chicken. The chicken I used needed to be cooked at 400 degrees for about 22 minutes.
While the chicken is baking in the oven, prepare your cheese. I do this by grating the mozzarella cheese stick so I can sprinkle it over the entire recipe when I am done.
Once all of your ingredients are cooked and ready to be devoured, place the squash in a circle in the middle of the plate. Lay the chicken on top of the bed of squash, add a 1/2 cup serving of pasta sauce over the chicken and squash. Then sprinkle the grated cheese over the entire thing.
I wanted my cheese to be gooey so I put it in the microwave for a few seconds to let the cheese melt. I also added a sprinkle of parmesan cheese. And let me tell you it was delicious! It felt like I was eating a chicken parm dish from a restaurant! I have made this every week since. I highly recommend if you haven't had spaghetti squash yet you make some as soon as possible. It is good for you and low in calories and is a great pasta replacement!
Cheers!
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