Toad Hall Gardens

Fine, organic produce from Bloomington, Indiana

Marcella’s Magic Sauce with Roasted Spaghetti Squash

This rich, simple comfort dish is so easy that the only way to mess it up is to change or complicate it. San Marzano canned tomatoes are readily available in Bloomington, so make no substitutions unless it's to swap in fresh, garden tomatoes. Based on Italian foodie and cookbook author Marcella Hazan's classic sauce recipe, this might inspire you to ditch pasta sauce from a jar forever. We're never going back!

Serves: 2 • Prep Time: 5 min • Cook Time: 1 hr

Ingredients

  • 1 28 ounce can San Marzano whole peeled tomatoes (or 2 cups fresh, peeled tomatoes)
  • 1 Sweet Onion
  • 5 tablespoons Butter
  • 1 heaping teaspoon Salt
  • 1 medium Spaghetti Squash
  • Olive Oil
  • Freshly-grated Parmesan cheese, if desired

Directions

  1. Preheat the oven to 425°F.
  2. Cut the spaghetti squash in half and scoop out the seeds.
  3. Peel the onion, slice off the ends, then cut it half. No chopping required!
  4. Open the canned tomatoes and use a pair of clean scissors to roughly chop the tomatoes directly in the can.
  5. Melt the butter in a medium-to-large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion halves and saute briefly, separating the chunks a bit with a spoon.
  6. Add the tomatoes and salt and stir to blend. Simmer, uncovered, for about 45 minutes (longer if you’re making a double recipes), stirring the sauce every 10-15 minutes.
  7. Once you’ve started the sauce, splash a small amount of olive oil inside each half of the spaghetti squash and rub to coat. Place the halves face down on a baking sheet and bake for about 30 minutes, or until they shred easily with a fork. Let the squash stand for 10 minutes, then fully shred the squash.
  8. Plate the squash and spoon on generous amounts of sauce. You can remove the onion pieces if you like, but we love how soft and sweet they become. Top with freshly-grated Parmesan, if desired.