Creamy Cauliflower Spaghetti Squash Casserole
Comfort food meets MAKE ME FIT food. This is so healthy and light, but still super tasty and filling. And there's nothing like pulling out one pan of hot, cheesy food for dinner!
Servings: 4 -6 servings
Calories: 293kcal
Ingredients
Cauliflower Cream Sauce
- 10 oz cauliflower florets About ½ head of cauliflower
- 4 cups chicken stock (or enough to cover cauliflower in pot- only 1/2-1 cup added in sauce later)
- 1/2 tbsp butter
- 4 cloves garlic (I use frozen Dorot Garden garlic cubes)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp pepper
- 1/4 cup milk I used fat free fairlife milk- best macros but it hardly matters in such a small quantity.
- 1 tsp curry powder (optional)
- 1 tbs fresh lemon juice
Spaghetti Squash Casserole
- 1 medium to large spaghetti squash (I got 600g of squash out of mine for this recipe)
- 1 lb extra lean ground turkey
- 3 oz shredded mozzarella cheese (84g)
- ½ a medium onion diced (200g)
- 1-2 tsp kosher salt
- ½ tsp pepper
- 2 tsp Italian seasoning
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 14.5 oz can diced or stewed tomatoes, drained
- 5 cloves garlic (I used frozen Dorot cubes)
- 2-3 cups fresh spinach, roughly chopped (150g)
- ¼ cup fresh basil, chopped
- 400 g cauliflower cream sauce
Instructions
Cauliflower Cream Sauce
- Bring 4 cups chicken broth to a boil in a large pot (or enough to cover the cauliflower). Add the cauliflower and cook, covered, for 7-10 minutes or until cauliflower is fork tender. Do not drain.
- While the cauliflower cooks, sauté the garlic and butter in a large nonstick skillet over LOW heat. Cook for several minutes until the garlic is soft and fragrant but not brown. You don’t want it bitter! Remove from heat and set aside.
- Use a slotted spoon to transfer the cauliflower pieces to your blender. Add ½ cup of the hot chicken broth, the sautéed garlic/butter, salt, pepper, curry, lemon and milk. Blend or puree for a few minutes until the sauce is very smooth. You can add more broth or milk depending on how thick you want the sauce. I prefer at least another ½ cup broth. Discard remaining broth. Set sauce aside.
You can also just steam your cauliflower in a bag - whether you buy fresh or frozen, florets or even riced. I just steam in the bag as directions allow so it’s nice and soft… then throw it in the blender with my sautéed butter and garlic… and the rest of the ingredients. Just 1 cup of chicken broth!
Spaghetti Squash Casserole
- Cook spaghetti squash however you like. You can roast it cut-side down like Martha Stewart, which is my preferred method. Or just poke it a few times and microwave the whole thing for 5-8 minutes, which is what I did for this! While it's cooking, continue with the rest of the steps.
- Heat a heavy-bottomed shallow pan over medium-high heat. Spray with cooking spray, then add diced onions and a sprinkle of kosher salt. Cook for 3-4 minutes, until tender.
- Add ground turkey and seasonings. Once the ground turkey is chopped and cooked through, add more salt to taste if needed.
- Add drained tomatoes and garlic. Cook for another 3 minutes.
- Add the chopped spinach and mix it in, letting it cook for a couple of minutes to wilt and fully incorporate.
- Stir in 400g of cauliflower cream sauce and the fresh basil.
- Carefully cut the squash in half lengthwise, then scoop out the seeds and insides with an ice cream scoop, careful not to pull out too much of the good stuff.
- Using a fork, scrape the squash into strings to loosen them from the skin and add them to the ground turkey mixture. Mix it all together well in the pan with tongs.
- If you're using an oven-safe pan, smooth the top of the mixture and top with mozzarella. Bake at 350°F for 15-20 minutes till the top is melty and bubbly. If you want it to brown a bit like mine, broil for an additional 3-5 minutes. But watch it closely so it doesn't burn!
- If it's not an oven-safe pan, transfer the mixture to a casserole dish, top with cheese, and bake as described.
Notes
- I recommend making this dish when you’ve ALREADY made a batch of the cauliflower cream sauce because then you can really just dirty the one dish!
- A sub for the cauliflower sauce: If you don't already have cauliflower sauce in your fridge like I did, you might not want to go to the trouble of that extra step. You could sub in an equal amount of your favorite jarred marinara, and the macros will not be that different! Of course, the whole dish would be more tomatoey, but I'm sure it'd be great! I love the Victoria Marinara from Costco for just 6 carbs per serving. And if you used it in place of the cauliflower sauce, it would only add about two carbs and less than one gram of fat per serving of casserole. I might add 1-2 more cloves of garlic to the meat mixture with this substitution though, since the cauliflower sauce has a lot of additional garlic in it.