Macro-Friendly Paleo Spaghetti Pie

There is nothing I love more than a delicious Paleo recipe made with whole-food ingredients that doesn’t wreck my “Macro Bank” for the rest of the day. I’m particularly loving casserole-type dishes because I can make them and eat off of them for several days. It makes weighing, measuring and calculating my macros easy peasy.

Pre-Paleo, I would have swam in a sea of regular spaghetti and never thought twice about it. Since learning that I have Celiac disease, studying nutrition and following a whole food or “Paleo” diet for the last almost-four years, I haven’t touched traditional pasta more than one time.  That one time was a “test” and I will spare you the gory details of my resulting digestive issues, but I will assure you that there was some definite “upset” I don’t care to repeat. I figured that pasta was a thing that I enjoyed in the past, but would never put in my body again…until, Coach Amanda told me about this recipe. Holy moly, finding out about spaghetti squash was life-changing for me. I can have “pasta” now without the anti-nutrients and stomach issues. AMAZING!

I have made this dish inspired by one of my favorite Paleo bloggers, PaleOMG about eleventy billion times, but I can never remember my substitutions without pulling up the trusty My Fitness Pal app and looking at how I made it last time. I am making it today and decided that it’s time to put it on the blog so I have an easy reference. Plus, I wanted to share this awesomeness with all of you. Enjoy!

Ingredients

• 1 large organic spaghetti squash (620g)
• 1 lb 99% lean ground chicken (I use Sprouts brand)
• 1/2 tsp organic olive oil
• 1/2 diced organic yellow onion (50g)
• 4 cloves of fresh garlic
• 1.5 cups organic marinara pasta sauce (I use Organica Bello)
• 1 whisked organic brown egg (I use Kirkaland Organic)
• 6 tbs whisked organic egg whites (I use Abbotsford Farms)
• 1 tsp dried basil
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Cut spaghetti squash in half lengthwise and place squash side down on a cookie sheet. Bake for 20 minutes.

3. Once the squash has finished baking, remove threads and place in an 8×8 greased baking dish. Reduce heat in oven to 350 degrees.

4. Put olive oil in large pan and sautee onion and garlic over medium heat. Once soft, add ground chicken and cook until pink no longer remains.

5. Add spaghetti sauce, dried basil, salt and pepper to pan. Mix well.

6. Place mixture in baking dish with spaghetti squash threads. Mix well.

7. Whisk egg and egg whites. Pour into baking dish mixture and mix well so that you can no longer see eggs.

8. Bake for 1 hour or until the top of the mixture forms a slight crust.

9. Let cool for a few minutes and serve.

Calories 239 (P:29/F:6/C:16)