Creamy spaghetti squash pasta

In honour of World Pasta Day, I’m combining two of my favourite things: autumn flavours and loads of noodles.

Early fall marks the season of the beautiful lemon-hued spaghetti squash. But in Toronto this past weekend it was glorious patio weather again, making my sunny kitchen feel like an oven. Instead of squash soup, I made a hearty squash sauce for my rigatoni.

The ingredients and process are basically the same as for making soup, except that less coconut milk is needed. This isn’t a sauce for when you’re feeling lazy, so reserve a couple of hours. But the result — chunky, coconutty, comforting and resembling mac n cheese — is well worth the effort.

You can cook spaghetti squash in the oven or boil it on the stovetop, both of which take up to 45 minutes (depending on the size of the squash). Here, I boiled the spaghetti squash and used the same soup pot and water to cook the pasta.

Creamy spaghetti squash pasta with mushrooms and broccoli

Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 90 minutes
Total time: 1 hour 45 minutes
Serves: 4

Ingredients

• 1 medium spaghetti squash
• 3 or 4 cloves garlic
• 1/2 medium onion
• 2 cups mushrooms, chopped
• 2 cups carrots, chopped
• 1 crown broccoli, chopped
• 1/2 can full-fat coconut milk
• nutritional yeast
• rosemary
• salt, pepper

Boil the squash

1. In a large soup pot, bring water to a boil. Add the whole squash and simmer for about 45 minutes.

While the squash is cooking

1. Chop the garlic, onion, mushrooms and carrots.
2. Heat a pan with coconut oil and sauté until the onion becomes translucent and the carrots are tender.

After boiling the squash

1. The flesh should be tender enough you can pull the spaghetti-like strands. Let it cool so that you can scoop out the strands into a bowl.
2. In the same soup pot, use the same water to cook the noodles. I added broccoli to the pot so that it would soften by the time the pasta is done.

While the pasta is cooking

1.  In a blender, pour 1/2 cup of coconut milk followed by the squash. Purée for a few minutes.
2. Add the garlic, onion and carrots. Blend until the mixture becomes a thick sauce. Add more coconut milk if you prefer a thinner sauce.

When the pasta is done

1. Strain the noodles and broccoli. Pour back into the soup pot and pour the sauce on top.
2. Sprinkle nutritional yeast and rosemary. Add salt and pepper to taste.