Veggie Filled Meat Sauce with Spaghetti Squash
A family of 4 kids and cooking meals isn't an easy task at all. It can be very frustrating at times. Many of you probably know with a large family it can be EXTREMELY difficult to make something that everyone enjoys. There always seems to be the one who refuses to eat what I cook. Thankfully we do have a few dishes that all of my children have decided they enjoy, one of those dishes being spaghetti squash noodles with a tomato based meat sauce!! We have a few others that everyone also enjoys, but honestly there is not many that I can say everyone will eat!!
Spaghetti squash makes for a healthy alternative to regular pasta/noodles which have little to no nutritional value and are loaded with refined carbohydrates. I like spaghetti squash because it is easy to prepare and very mild on taste so children usually like it especially if you pour sauce on top of it. Although, my kids are pretty good eaters my two boys sometimes refuse to try certain vegetable just because of what they look like. Zucchini just happens to be one of them. But when they don't know they are in a dish they will eat them. So I decided to sneak in some extra veggies into this sauce by sautéing them first and then blending them along with tomato puree in my blender. The verdict was that the sauce tasted great and all the children cleaned their plates!!!! I hope your family enjoys this sauce just as much as mine did!
Servings: 6-8 Meal Size
Ingredients For Sauce:
- 1 28oz can or jar of strained tomatoes (pureed or chopped)
- 3 Large Spaghetti Squash ( you can always cook up more)
- 2 lbs Grass Fed ground beef
- 1 Large zuchinni
- 1/2 Red Onion and 1/2 Yellow Onion chopped ( 1 yellow onion can be substituted)
- 1 cup Fresh Baby Spinach
- 1/4 cup Fresh Basil leaves or 1 1/2 tsp dried
- 1/8 cup Fresh Parsley or 1tsp dried
- 1TBSP Ghee or other cooking fat of choice
- 2-3 Garlic Cloves chopped
- 2 tsp Sea Salt (add more to taste)
- 1/2 tsp Dried Tyme
- 1/2 tsp Dried Oregano
- Black Ground Pepper to taste
- Directions: Add Ghee to large pan. When ghee is melted add your zucchini, onions, and garlic and sauté until onions are translucent and zucchini is still a little firm.
- Add your spinach along with the herbs to the pan and continue to cook until spinach is wilted.
- Add your tomatoes along with the veggie sauté into your blender and blend until there are no longer chunks of vegetables present. The sauce should be pretty smooth. You can leave the sauce alone while you cook up the meat.
- Meanwhile, in the same pan that you just cooked up your vegetables add your ground beef and cook until beef is completely cooked through.
- Take your sauce and add it to the pan with your meat. Season with the amount of salt and pepper you like and heat.
- Sauce is ready to serve over your spaghetti squash. You can also serve this on zuchinnin noodles. This sauce tastes even better the second day!!
Spaghetti Squash Directions:
- Heat your oven to 400 degrees F and line 1-2 baking sheets with parchment paper
- Cut both ends of your squash off and cut sown the middle. Remove the seeds and place the squash onto the baking sheet with the skin side up.
- Bake your squash fro 35-40 min.
- Remove and let sit for 10 min to cool before scooping inside of squash out.
- When you are ready to eat you and scoop the noodle like insides of the squash out.
**To save on time I will cook my squash the day before and store in a container in the fridge, or I will cook up my squash a couple hours before so it is ready**
