Hey, everyone! Since I was a kid, I’ve loved spaghetti. My mother has always prepared spaghetti with a meat sauce, which is delicious but full of carbs. That’s not even including the pasta. Missing my mom’s cooking at grad school, I decided to create a similar keto-friendly recipe. First, I’ll breakdown how to prepare spaghetti squash, which is what I used for the “noodles.” Then, I’ll give you my keto-friendly tomato sauce recipe. Hope you enjoy!
Preparing Spaghetti Squash
Spaghetti squash is a popular substitute for spaghetti pasta due to the taste and total carb amount (approximately 5.5 g net carbs per cup). One squash serves about 2 people.
What you want to do first is wash and dry the squash. Preheat oven to 400° F.
Next, cut the squash in half, horizontally or vertically. The direction doesn’t matter. I personally chose horizontally, because squash is difficult to cut through. It was a shorter distance this way. After the squash is cut in half, spoon out the “guts.”
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Fill the bottom of a cookie sheet or pan with water. Make sure there is enough water to submerged the bottom end (where you cut the squash in half) in the water. Place halved squash on the sheet/pan.
Place the squash into the oven at 400° F. Bake the squash for 45-50 minutes or until soft. Squash should look similar to below picture.
Remove the squash and start scraping out squash with a fork. I found it was easier to scrape upward versus downward. The squash spaghetti should look like this!
And you’re all set for the sauce!
Spaghetti Sauce
Many tomato-based sauces have an average of 12 g carbs per 0.5 cup — not even a full cup. So I found that the Rao’s Homemade Arrabbiata Fra Diavolo sauce is an excellent substitute.
Rao’s has a lot of other options if you don’t want a spicy sauce. The sauce I used has 4 g net carbs per 0.5 cup. I personally didn’t taste the difference compared the sauce my mom uses. I definitely had a LOT of sauce left over. Here’s the recipe:
Serves about 4-5 people.
1 jar of a Rao’s Homemade sauce of your choice (net 4 g carbs)
2 chopped green peppers (net 4 g carbs per pepper)
2 chopped onions (approximately 2 g net carbs – depending on what type you used. I used white onion.)
2 cups of chopped mushrooms (<1 g carbs per mushroom)
32 oz of ground turkey (0 g carbs)
2 tablespoons of Italian seasoning
garlic salt and black pepper to taste
optional: basil leaves
Cook meat on medium to high heat until browned. Mix in seasonings (pepper, salt, and Italian seasoning) with meat. Prepare sauce in separate pot. Heat tomato sauce on medium heat. If you want to add basil, add it here and stir. Heat the sauce and basil for 5 minutes. Note: I did not use basil, but you can if you would like for taste. Stir in onion, green pepper, and mushrooms. Place top on and let it cook for 10 minutes. Add meat and stir. Place top on and let it cook for 10-15 minutes or until vegetables have softened. Top spaghetti squash or zucchini noodles with sauce and enjoy. I like to garnish this dish with shredded cheddar or grated parmesan cheese. Maybe sometimes a little too much cheese… haha!
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I will try other Rao’s sauces and let you know how they taste! Hope you give this a try! If you do, send me a picture or message me the results.
Thanks for visiting my blog! Be sure to check out my other posts. Until then be kind and remember tomorrow depends on what you do today. Hope you enjoyed reading! — Taylor ❤
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