what is a spaghetti squash?

Answer 1

It is a vegetable that grows on a vine. It is called is that, because when you bake it in the oven, the insides are stringy like spaghetti. It is a winter squash,which means that it can be stored in the winter months, unlike the summer squash which spoils within a week or two.
After you bake it long enough to be able to poke a fork in it, cut it the length way, remove the seeds, and place it in a bowl. A fork will sepatate the strings. We like to add a little butter and salt on it. It is also good with spaghetti sauce.

Answer 2

Averaging from 4 to 8 pounds, the cylinder shaped spaghetti squash is generally available year-round with a peak season from early fall through winter. While a true spaghetti squash is pale ivory to pale yellow in color, in the early 1990's, an orange spaghetti squash, known as "Orangetti" was developed and this is what is frequently found in today's supermarkets. Higher in beta carotene, the orange variety is also bit sweeter than its paler counterpart, although both have a mild flavor that is easily enhanced by the food served with or on it. A dieter's dream, a four-ounce serving of spaghetti squash has only 37 calories.

Answer 3

Spaghetti squash is an oblong seed-bearing fruit. The fruit can range from ivory to yellow in color. Its center contains many large squash seeds. Its flesh is bright yellow. When cooked, the flesh falls away from the fruit in ribbons or strands, like spaghetti. Its taste is nothing like spaghetti. Spaghetti squash can be baked, boiled or steamed, and served with sauce as for pasta, or used as a vegetable base.

Answer 4

It is a type of squash that when the meat is cooked turns into the consistency of spaghetti. It is very good. Cut it in half and boil it until it is tender. Then you remove it from the outside shell by flaking it with a fork. Serve it with spaghetti sauce, just like regular pasta.

Answer 5

A big squash like Sheila said, but the insides look cross between a pumpkin and spaghetti.

Answer 6

Big beige looking squash that, when cooked, has the consistency of spaghetti noodles.

Answer 7

The most natural and healthy diet for humans is an omnivorous diet, and not a plant based diet, or a meat-based diet per se. The Paleo Diet can be very widely varied and omnivorous for the most part, but the most important thing is that it’s unprocessed, and avoids the worst foods that agriculture brought mankind… refined inflammatory vegetable oils, refined grains (some are worse than others), and sugar! Learn here https://tr.im/uFmiX

As you can see, the benefits of adopting a Paleo way of eating can be incredible! I’ve been eating 95% Paleo for the last 5-6 years and I’ve never felt better. I have dozens of friends that have adopted a more Paleo way of eating too, and have seen all sorts of health problems disappear, including eliminating acne and other skin problems, digestion problems, improving brain clarity, and of course, losing a lot of body fat!

Answer 8

Spaghetti Squash
by Leigh Abernathy ([e-mail])

Copyright Leigh Abernathy, September, 1999

Spaghetti squash isn't a small-town festival where women stomp pasta in giant wooden vats. It's a vegetable whose name makes perfect sense when you cook it--underneath the rind, the flesh separates into long pasta-like strands.

Along with butternut squash, turban squash, and pumpkins, spaghetti squash is part of the winter squash family, sometimes known as "keeper" squash because they will last for several months in cool storage. Their hard rind that protects them from moisture, an attribute that people have been taking advantage of for thousands of years--parts of winter squash have been found in pre-Columbian archeological sites in South America.

North American natives grew them too. In fact, our name for squash comes from the Naraganset word "askutasquash" which the colonists corrupted to "isquotersquash," (think it in a Dutch accent) later shortened to just plain squash.

To the early settlers, squash was just another mysterious New World food that they ate to survive the hard winters, but today's winter squashes are not such a puzzle. They are easy to grow, given a rich soil, plenty of moisture and space to climb and store well.

At the grocery store most even come labeled with directions and recipe hints. Look for ones that seem heavy for their size with a hard skin and no soft spots or cuts. The average four-pound spaghetti squash will yield about five cups.

As for storage, keep them at room temperature for up to a month. For longer-term storage, ideally you need a place where the temperature hovers around 50 degrees. Unfortunately, most homes today don't come equipped with caves or old-fashioned cave-mimicking root cellars, so we rely on food brokers and warehouses to store vegetables like winter squash for us.

You should grow or bring home a spaghetti squash if for no other reason than because it is fun. Kids in particular delight in this vegetable surprise, but spaghetti in a shell is a delight for everyone. It has a mild flavor that makes it a good substitute for its namesake, but it's also good plain with a little butter and sprinkled with parmesan or in this casserole: toss the cooked squash with some leftover ham and a simple cheese sauce made from butter, flour, milk and your favorite cheese and bake it for thirty minutes.

Before you use spaghetti squash, though, you have to cook it. There are a couple of basic methods. The first begins by cutting it in half lengthwise and scooping out the seeds, then cooking for 30 to 45 minutes face-down in a little water on top of the stove or on a cookie sheet in the oven. If your squash feels more like a 2 x 4 than food when you try to cut it, just pierce the skin in several places (with an ice pick if necessary) and bake it whole at 375 degrees for 45 minutes, turning it once. Either way, it's ready when the skin gives easily under pressure and the meat is tender.

Once it's cooked, let it cool for 10 to 20 minutes so it will be easier to handle, then cut it in half (if it wasn't already), remove the seeds and use a fork to scrape out the meat--it will come out in long, pasta-like strands. I usually strain this to get rid of extra moisture that might make a dish a little soupy.

Spaghetti squash is a dieter's dream: a four-ounce serving of spaghetti squash has only 37 calories. (The same amount of pasta has 167 calories.) Try this meatless tomato sauce and you can eat a generous serving for only 240 calories and only 3 grams of fat.

Spaghetti Squash with Tomatoes and Herbs


spaghetti squash, cooked
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 28-ounce can tomatoes, drained
1 tablespoon chopped fresh or frozen basil
1/8 teaspoon dried oregano
2-3 tablespoons grated parmesan or romano cheese
Sauté the garlic in the oil until it's softened but not burned. Chop the tomatoes (I usually squish them in my hand over the pot) add them along with the herbs to the garlic and simmer for ten to fifteen minutes. Ladle this on the squash and top with freshly grated parmesan for a light dinner.

For a spaghetti squash lasagna (something of a non sequitur since lasagna refers to the pasta and that's what the squash replaces), layer the cooked squash strands with sauce and cheese, just as you would regular lasagna, and bake for thirty minutes at 350F.

You can also toss the cooked squash with half a cup of orange juice, the same amount of chopped parsley and a little salt or pepper for a warm salad or side dish. Any leftovers can be eaten cold the next day or reheated in the microwave.

The first spaghetti squash I ever cooked (or ate, for that matter) was given to me years ago by a friend with a farming father. Since then, I've grown and given away my share--one of the great joys of gardening

Answer 9

It's a vegetable, readily available in supermarkets.

The flesh kind of looks like spaghetti when shredded.

Answer 10

spagetti squash is a squash that resembles the appearance of spagetti. You take a fork to remove it from the rind.