Spinach-artichoke dip with a pound of ground meat in it, baked back into the squash it came out of. The shell does the work a casserole dish would, and the squash strands keep it from being as heavy as it sounds.
Ingredients
- 1 spaghetti squash (2½–3 lb), halved lengthwise, seeds removed
- 1 lb ground meat — turkey, beef, or sausage
- 1 package (10 oz) frozen chopped spinach
- 1 package (10 oz) frozen artichoke hearts, thawed and chopped
- 1 block (8 oz) Neufchâtel cheese, cubed and softened
- ½ cup grated Parmesan, divided
- ¼ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp ground pepper
Instructions
- Heat the oven to 400°F. Set the squash halves cut side down on a rimmed baking sheet and bake until tender, 40–50 minutes — a fork should pull the strands free without resistance.
- Meanwhile, brown the ground meat in a large skillet over medium-high, breaking it up as it cooks, until no pink remains, 7–8 minutes. Drain off the fat.
- Thaw the spinach and squeeze it dry, hard — a fistful at a time in a clean towel, until no more water comes out.
- Scrape the squash from the shells into a large bowl, and set the empty shells back on the baking sheet.
- Combine everything in the bowl before any of it goes back into the shells: add the meat, spinach, artichokes, Neufchâtel, ¼ cup of the Parmesan, the salt, and the pepper, and stir until the cheese coats the strands rather than sitting in lumps. Taste it here — once it's divided between the shells, seasoning it evenly is no longer possible.
- Divide the mixture between the shells and top with the remaining ¼ cup Parmesan. Return to the 400°F oven for 10 minutes, until heated through and the cheese has melted.
Make-Ahead & Storage
Covered in the fridge, the filled halves keep 3 days and reheat in a 350°F oven. The filling can be mixed a day ahead and stuffed into freshly roasted shells, which is the half worth doing in advance — the squash is the slow part.
Notes
Squeeze the spinach like you mean it. A thawed block is mostly water, and whatever you leave in it ends up pooled in the shell. This is the one step that decides whether the filling is creamy or soupy, and it's easy to underdo.
This makes a generous amount of filling — enough that the shells may not hold all of it. Bake the overflow in a small dish alongside rather than mounding the halves past the point where they heat through evenly.
Sausage brings its own salt and fat, so taste before adding the ¼ tsp salt if that's what you're using. Turkey is the leanest of the three and benefits from a little olive oil in the skillet.