8) Like Thanksgiving break, the name is too good to be true. “Pasta? Inside a vegetable?! Oh wait…”
7) Chopping it in half will provide you with more physical activity than you’ve gotten in days.
6) Trying to prepare spaghetti squash, especially with dull kitchen utensils, really puts your life in perspective. “Yeah, this group project is awful, but at least I’m not in the emergency room with a severed thumb.”
5) In the process of trying to disembowel your spaghetti squash, you might stumble across this actually helpful video and afterward add “cook” to your list of potential badass careers. Just in case the college thing doesn’t work out.
4) The cooking process caters to procrastinators, yet promotes time management. Hack apart a squash, study for an hour while it bakes. Stuff the squash with chicken and cheese, study for 20 minutes while it bakes. Enjoy the fruits (and vegetables) of your labor.
3) It serves four, or a football player, or you during an all-nighter. It’s just that ginormous. Take that, Chipotle burrito bowl.
2) Any food that is its own bowl is comfort food, but in the case of spaghetti squash, you get psychological comfort too. It’s low-calorie to begin with, and you break a sweat just preparing it. In the end, that has to work out to net zero. Right?
1) Like that professor who cancels your final exam, it’s more than you dared hope for. The taste is mild, the “noodles” are crunchy. Smothering it with cheese has an instant, satisfying effect. You can put whatever you want in it (veggies, beef, kidney beans), and it’s still something you can call home about, great evidence for reassuring your mother. “What’d you eat today, honey?” “Nacho dip, but in a squash. It had nutrients, Mom. I promise.”
If you’re ready to rise to the spaghetti squash challenge, you can start with this recipe. It uses mozzarella and marinara sauce, but since I had neither, I ended up going taco-style with salsa and cheddar. You can easily use whatever’s in your fridge.
