Craving baked pasta? Try this FAKE Ziti (spaghetti squash bake)

One of the things I miss most about cutting out grains from my life is pasta. So, I'm always on the lookout for pasta substitutes that still satisfy that craving, without the grains. This recipe is one of the yummiest I've tried out yet, and I think everyone should try it!

Ingredients:

2 medium-large organic spaghetti squash
2-3 organic yellow and/or green zucchini
1 jar of organic tomato sauce of your choice (or homemade if you have time)
1 package of organic ground beef
mozzarella cheese (the amount you use depends on your preference. My family likes cheese so we used about a pound)
organic Italian seasoning, garlic, pepper, sea salt (all amounts to taste)

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Slice your spaghetti squash lengthwise in half and place face up on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. It's best to remove the seeds before you bake it, but as you can see in the pic, I forgot that step. You can remove them after baking, it's just more time consuming.

Bake them for about 30-35 minutes. They'll look like the pic above when done. While those are in the oven, shred your cheese and your zucchini 

Next, brown your ground beef in a pot and drain before adding your sauce. 

Heat the sauce and ground beef until bubbly, and add in your spices to taste. By this time, your spaghetti squash should be done. Take it out and let cool for a few minutes so you can handle it without burning yourself. Then, using a fork, shred the "meat" of the spaghetti squash into strands of "spaghetti." Up the temperature of your oven to 400 degrees now. 

In a large mixing bowl, mix up the "spaghetti" and your shredded zucchini. Then, place the mixture in a large 13X9 baking dish and pour your sauce/meat mixture on top. Then, add the cheese on top on some more seasonings on the top.  This is what it looks like before you put it in the oven. 

Bake at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes, until the cheese is bubbly and brown. It's best to let it sit for about 10 minutes or so once it comes out of the oven, but as you can see, we were hungry and couldn't wait. It would have held together much better if we would have waited, but it was still amazing!

If there are any leftovers, they are even yummier the next day. This was a crowd pleasing recipe with all of my kiddos asking for seconds and thirds. Best of all, everything is organic except the cheese (only because organic cheese is hard to find in my neck of the woods and super expensive when you find it). You can also add in some spinach or kale, but I didn't have any on hand. Enjoy and please let me know in the comments if you try it.