How To Prepare Spaghetti Squash

I'm going to show you how to prepare a spaghetti squash. Now, obviously, the first thing that we need to do is prepare the squash. I like to use a serrated edge knife.

I've taken the bowl of a squash, and what I'm going to do is just cut around the seeds. There are quite a lot of them in this one, as you can see. Some people like to roast those seeds off, and they add an extra sort of crunchiness to it, but it just really depends on what you prefer.

So I'm just going to get rid of all those. There we go. And now, I'm just going to dice them up.

You want them roughly the same sort of size. And if they're all the same size, they'll all cook at the same time. What you obviously don't want is for some of them to be burnt and some undercooked.

There we go. And then finally, now, this will work for any sort of squash or pumpkin. I've got a butternut here.

So we've got those diced. There are a couple of others in there. A little bit of olive oil, that goes straight in.

Some salt and pepper. I like to add a little bit of honey, not too much, just a squeeze, and I've also got some chopped thyme here, so that also goes in the bowl. Just give those a bit of a shake around, into the pan, and I reckon I've got the oven on 150.

For me, I think that's the right temperature. They're going to cook for about forty minutes. I'll give them a turn, maybe halfway through.

In, they go. What we'll then do is add the roasted squash to some cooked spaghetti. I'm very happy with those squash cooked to perfection.

I'm just going to set them aside for the moment and in the meantime, I know the title said spaghetti, but I've got some - I had it knocking around - some homemade tagliatelle. It's the same principle, obviously, and for how to make tagliatelle, you can search that one on the title. I'm just going to pop this one into a pan of boiling water.

Personally, I don't like to salt the water. I do the salting process at the end and the way I cook any sort of pastoral spaghetti is I just leave it in the water and I keep tasting it until I have the texture and consistency that I want. That's about to come up and spill over the edge so I'm just going to turn it down.

So we're going to carry on cooking that, and because it's fresh pasta, albeit dry, it will probably take two or three minutes to cook. So when you come back, we'll finish the dish off. I'm happy with that.

It's cooked nicely. As I said, the best way, and this is an old wives' tale that actually works, you can sling it against the wall and if it sticks, it's done. I'm happy with that; it's got a nice bit of bite to it.

So what I'm going to do –normally, I would just do this over the sink- but because you're watching, I'm going to do it into a bowl. Now, the secret, I think, of making perfect pasta is leave some of the moisture in there. Otherwise, the proteins will just stick it together.

Give that a good old mix. So we've got the salt and pepper, the olive oil in there, and I'm just going to put half of our squash in here, and give that a good old mix. There we go.

Now, as I say, I'm using tagliatelle here but you can use spaghetti. Spaghetti - I find the bought spaghetti does take a lot longer to cook. It's more like ten to twelve minutes rather than three to four with fresh.

And then, in fact, I don't know why I'm using the tongs. I'm just going to use my hands and garnish the dish. But there you have it, how to prepare spaghetti squash. .