In a shock to utterly nobody, spaghetti squash—unfairly maligned as bland and watery—tastes wonderful when smothered in flavorful tomato sauce and blanketed below a layer of melty cheese. Right here the tomato sauce cooks within the oven on the similar time the squash roasts; mix the 2, return the dish to the oven, and also you’ve bought a hands-off dinner with minimal cleanup. Serve this with bread and a inexperienced salad one evening, then combine leftovers into pasta for “noodles” on noodles the subsequent.
Halving the squash crosswise is a tip we discovered from cookbook author and meals blogger Alexandra Stafford; it entails simpler (and safer!) knife work and leads to longer, extra noodle-like strands. The bake time of the squash relies on the squash itself—anecdotally and with no scientific backing, I’ve discovered that smaller, yellower spaghetti squashes are likely to cook dinner sooner and style higher. —Sarah Jampel
