We turned our favorite million dollar spaghetti into a low carb meal! This spaghetti squash casserole is cheesy, hearty, and a major family favorite. Just 8 net carbs serving.
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One of the things I love most about this time of year is the whole comfort food situation.
People don’t seem to like casseroles in the dead of summer, but they are 100% totally acceptable the minute it starts to cool off.
Sure, I miss the sunshine and my pool, but did you take a close look at this cheesy spaghetti squash casserole? Doesn’t it look dreamy?
One of my favorite pasta recipes is million dollar spaghetti so I took the idea and swapped out spaghetti squash for traditional pasta.
Total win!
This is probably one of the best spaghetti squash recipes I’ve made yet, but be sure to try out our spaghetti squash carbonara and spaghetti squash alfredo!
Ingredient Notes:
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Spaghetti Squash – A ripe spaghetti squash should be firm with a golden yellow or dark yellow color. Pick one that feels heavier than it looks for the best taste.
Ground Beef – I’m using lean ground beef in this meaty million dollar spaghetti squash casserole! If you want to mix things up feel free to use a different type of meat like ground sausage, chicken, or turkey.
Sugar-Free Marinara – You can use either a homemade marinara or a store bought. We love Rao’s Marinara! It’s perfect for Italian recipes like this spaghetti squash casserole, and we love it for low carb pizza! You’ll mix it with the ground beef to make a meat sauce.
Cream Cheese Mixture – When you make a million dollar casserole you know it’s going to be rich, creamy, and cheesy! You’ll mix together some cream cheese, sour cream, and parsley to make the center layer of the spaghetti squash casserole.
Mozzarella – You’ve got to top this casserole with something, so why not more cheese? Some grated mozzarella is perfect for topping. Parmesan would work too!
We use Thrive Market for a lot of our specialty ingredients and keto snacks or products. Their prices tend to be cheaper than the local stores and I love that you can so easily sort products by diet.
Like Costco, this is a membership site, but we find that it’s more than worth it based on the amount we save over the regular grocery store.
They have monthly or yearly plans. Check it out here.
- It’s not quite the same as real spaghetti, but it’s a very good dupe and it satisfies my pasta cravings!
- The creamy cheesy center is unreal. So rich and adds the perfect decadence to this keto spaghetti!
- I love when I can make a meal the whole family loves and this one is always a hit! It’s a surefire way to get kids to try spaghetti squash.
How To Make Spaghetti Squash:
- Prepare – To start, you’re going to cut a spaghetti squash in half. This probably sounds like an easy task, but if you’ve ever worked with spaghetti squash before you’ll know that you need to bring your muscles and a sharp knife to this game.
Spaghetti squash are HARD on the outside. Dig that knife in (carefully!) and cut all the way around. You can do it, I believe in you. 😉 Finally, scoop out the seeds!
- Bake – Drizzle some olive oil on the inside of the squash, sprinkle with some salt, and place it flesh side down on a prepared rimmed baking sheet. Roast it for about an hour.
- Spaghetti Squash – When the squash is cool enough to handle, use a fork to scrape long strands of squash out.
If you go lengthwise down the squash you’ll get short strands of spaghetti. If you go across the width of the squash, you’ll get long strands. It’s kind of counter-intuitive, but just play with it. It all tastes the same either way.
How To Make Low Carb Meat Sauce:
- Ground Beef – To begin you’ll brown up your ground beef (or whatever type of ground meat you prefer) and then dump in your favorite low carb marina.
I prefer Rao’s and use it almost exclusively when making keto spaghetti sauce. There are only 4g net carbs per 1/2 cup serving. You can find it at most any grocery store, usually up on the top shelf. It’s a little pricey, but it’s seriously the best!
- Cream Cheese Mixture: Let your meat sauce simmer away while you get to work on the million dollar aspect of this recipe: dairy goodness! Add some cream cheese, sour cream, and fresh parsley to a small bowl and stir until well combined. This mixture is so creamy and amazing.
The traditional million dollar spaghetti calls for cottage cheese as well, but it adds a fair amount of carbs so I skipped it. If you have room in your carb allowance, go ahead and add a 1/2 cup of cottage cheese to this mixture. You won’t regret it!
How To Assemble Spaghetti Squash Casserole:
- Assemble – Add half of the spaghetti squash noodles to the bottom of a 9×13 baking dish. Top that off with half of the meat sauce and then spread on all of the cream cheese mixture. Doesn’t that look amazing??
- Top – Next, add the final layers of spaghetti squash and the keto meat sauce and top that all off with some grated mozzarella and a little parsley.
- Finish – Pop this in a hot oven for 20 minutes to allow the cheese to get all warm and melty. I like to serve this with a big side salad topped with my homemade ranch dressing. This cheesy casserole will go well with anything green, like these roasted green beans!
Quick & Easy Spaghetti Squash:
We like baking the spaghetti squash for this recipe since you’ll be using the oven anyways, but there are a couple other methods that are a bit faster! You can prepare the spaghetti squash any way you like for this recipe, and then continue with adding the meat sauce and cream cheese mixture.
- Instant Pot Spaghetti Squash – This is the fastest method! Perfectly tender spaghetti squash in just a few minutes.
- Air Fryer Spaghetti Squash – It tastes similar to roasting spaghetti squash in the oven, but it takes only half the time!
Now that you are a pro at making spaghetti squash, you’ll want to check out some of my other low carb recipes that use it!
- Chicken Spaghetti Squash Casserole
- Roasted Spaghetti Squash with Bacon
- Spaghetti Squash and Meatballs
- Buffalo Chicken Spaghetti Squash
- Garlic Parmesan Spaghetti Squash
FAQs:
You can keep any leftovers stored in the fridge for 3-4 days. You can reheat the spaghetti squash casserole in the oven.
Carefully! If you’ve never cut one before you’ll be surprised at how hard the exterior of the squash can be. You will need a sharp knife. Cut all the way around the spaghetti squash length-wise until it splits in half.
When baked up into this rich, creamy million dollar spaghetti squash casserole each serving is only 8 net grams!
Spaghetti squash has an earthy, sweet flavor that pairs well with many different ingredients. It has more texture than a noodle, but it works well as a replacement in many pasta dishes.
MORE LOW CARB FAVORITES!
- Low Carb Chicken Casserole: Made with cauliflower rice, broccoli, and chicken!
- Zucchini Pizza Boats: Pepperoni on mine please, but you can add any of your favorite toppings!
- Buffalo Chicken Meatballs: We eat these for dinner, but they’re fun for game day too!
- Keto Cabbage Rolls Recipe: None of the work, all of the flavor in these unstuffed cabbage rolls!
- Cheesy Cauliflower Bake: This is a simple low carb side dish made extra easy with an air fryer!
- Keto Fried Zucchini: The perfect low carb appetizer or snack!
Million Dollar Spaghetti Squash Casserole
Ingredients
- 1 spaghetti squash 2-3 pounds
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 pound ground beef
- 24 ounces marinara store bought or homemade
- 8 ounces cream cheese
- ½ cup sour cream
- 1 tablespoon chopped parsley
- 2 cups shredded mozzarella
Instructions
For the squash:
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray a rimmed baking sheet with non-stick spray.
- Cut the spaghetti squash in half length-wise. Scoop out the seeds and discard. Drizzle the inside of the squash with olive oil and sprinkle with salt.
- Place spaghetti squash flesh side down on the prepared baking sheet at bake for 1 hour or until fork tender.
- Use a fork to scrape out long strands of squash, scraping across the width of the squash.
For the meat sauce:
- Brown the ground beef over medium heat in a large skillet.
- Drain the grease and add the marinara to the pan. Cook for 5 minutes over low heat to heat through.
For the cream cheese mixture:
- Add the cream cheese, sour cream, and parsley to a small mixing bowl and stir well to combine.
To assemble:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9×13 baking dish with non-stick spray.
- Place half of the spaghetti squash in the prepared baking dish.
- Top the squash with half of the meat sauce and all of the cream cheese mixture.
- Add the remaining spaghetti squash followed by the remaining meat sauce.
- Sprinkle on the grated mozzarella.
- Bake for 20 minutes or until cheese is melted and casserole is hot.
- Serve immediately.
Amie says
Can you use ricotta cheese instead of the sour cream and cream cheese
Karly Campbell says
Sure!
Kathy L. says
Made this for dinner tonight. My husband(picky) loved it! I can’t wat to make it again!!
Karly Campbell says
Yay! So glad to hear that!
Amy says
I tried this recipe tonight and it was fabulous! I did not miss the pasta at all!
Karly Campbell says
Thanks, Amy!
Lisa Ma says
Just a tip for anyone who has an instant pot and HATES working with raw spaghetti squash like me (too tough & hard to cut!)…you can throw it in your instant pot exactly as you bought it (no need to cut it or poke holes!) and add a cup of cold water and pressure-cook it for 30 minutes! It’ll be super soft and it’ll be super easy to pull the strands out! Thank you for this awesome recipe! I love the idea of adding an egg & Parmesan cheese!
Karly Campbell says
Great tip! Thanks, Lisa!
Mark Russell says
full fat “Mozzarella” for step 6
Mark Russell says
I cannot follow a recipe to save my life. I try, i really do. Then the creative instinct just kicks in and i’m lost. Sooooo, here’s what i done and still stayed inside the Keto boundaries:
1. Crock-potted the spaghetti squash for 6 hours in ½ cup water, ⅓ cup chicken stock.
2. Browned the Turkey in butter and shallots. Added a viking measurement of chopped garlic
3. Added diced jalapeños, diced tomatoes, taco seasoning, juice from pepperchini bottle, tomato paste (for substance), salt, pepper, and generous oregano.
4. Mixed sour cream, cream cheese, and rocatta cheese in small bowl with ⅓ cup cilantro (i like cilantro).
5. 1 tbl Coconut oil in 9×13 glass baking dish.
6. layers from the bottom up: spaghetti squash, meat mixture, sour cream mixture, spaghetti squash, meat mixture, full-fat
7. Took 2 shots of very nicely aged spiced rum, and followed with cold beer.
8. Baked for 21 minutes at 350, then 4 minutes with Broiler set to “super-high-bording-on-hell” setting to crisp the top of the cheese mixture.
9. Poured 3 glasses of Pinot for the family.
Lynn Gill says
Question : The recipe says there are 10 Carbs but when viewing the recipe in Prepear it shows the carbs as 25g. That is a huge difference and will not fit into my low carb food plan.
Karly Campbell says
Hi Lynn! Not sure why the calculations are different on Prepare. In both instances, they’re being calculated with an automatic calculation. If you want perfectly accurate numbers you’ll want to calculate yourself. 🙂
Kristen says
I found the same thing, 21.9 carbs (with Raos sauce which is low carb) and about 18 net carbs. I think you need to recalculate…
Karly Campbell says
Hi Kristen! The numbers are accurate based on the calculator we use, which pulls from the USDA, but the nutrition info is there as a courtesy and not guaranteed to be accurate as I’m not a dietician and this is all calculated automatically. It will vary based on the exact size of the produce you use as well as different brands.
Beverly says
I made this yesterday and it was Fabulous!!! I’ve already shared your recipe many times!!
I added a little ricotta, 1 egg and Parmesan to the cheese mixture. I drained the squash well.
I made it in the morning and cooked it in the evening so it took about 30 minutes to get it nice and hot.
DELICIOUS!! Thank you for this recipe!
Karly Campbell says
So glad you enjoyed the recipe! Thanks for sharing!
Kaye says
Wowza!!! Omg so good!!!! I’ve been having the craziest craving for pasta this week and this hit the nail on the head and drove it 50 feet into the ground! This recipe is a blessing and I haven’t been this excited for left overs in months. Thank you , thank you THANK YOU! I will be trying more of your recipes !!
Chad Campbell says
Oh yay, so happy to hear this did the trick for you!
Holly says
Love this!! We used a little less cheese and ground turkey (because that’s what I had) and I used the suggested/optional cottage cheese.
Karly Campbell says
So glad you enjoyed it, Holly!
Megan Hruby says
Made this tonight and it was delicious! I can’t wait for the leftovers for lunch tomorrow! It made a ton! I ended up using 2 lbs because that is what I had and usually 1 lb of protein won’t feed us leftovers so I went with what I had. Thank you 🙂
Karly Campbell says
Always a good sign when you’re excited for leftovers! 🙂 Thanks, Megan!
Kim says
I can’t wait to make this.. but, when you all the ingredients except Cream Cheese .. is there a subsitute? Should I just wait until I get some cream cheese?
Karly Campbell says
Hi Kim! I’ve never tried this one without the cream cheese. It definitely adds to the rich cheesiness of the dish and I don’t think it’d be the same without it.
Jackie Mitchell says
I’ve made this a few times now and we loooooove it! It’s a really flexible recipe, and I like to make it when I’m trying to clear out “tired” vegetables. Tonight, I added an onion, a bell pepper, a bunch of mushrooms, and some zucchini that I spiralized, steamed, and layered in with the spaghetti squash. I did add the cottage cheese (yum—creamy-ness!) and some grated Parmesan with the cheese layer. Because, cheese. In the end, I know we’ll be getting more than 8 carbs per serving, but I’m good with a splurge dish that tastes as good as this does! My husband calls it his new comfort food, and so far we’ve each lost about 40 pounds! Thanks for all the amazing recipes!!!
Karly Campbell says
Love all the extra veggies you add! That’s a great way to use them up. So glad you enjoy the recipe! 🙂
Donna M Cremer says
Excellent. Made exactly like recipe except slightly smaller pan. My son and husband said, “it’s a keeper” after first bite. Reheated well. I really dried the squash by putting it in a strainer and press water out with plate. My son had it next day for lunch. Fabulous
Karly Campbell says
So glad this was such a hit!
Pam says
I have tried several of your recipes and have nothing to complain about. Some I have liked better than others but they are all edible. This one is a keeper. I didn’t have a spaghetti squash so I used Healthy Momma angel hair pasta. Was so good. Thanks
Karly Campbell says
Thanks, Pam!
Brent Gill says
Have not tried this, though it looks delightful. Problem I see is that I plugged “Spaghetti Squash” into my software program and it shows that 2 cups of Spaghetti Squash has 20g or Carbs. That sounds like a delightful recipe, but not sure I’m willing to give that mny carbs for this meal. Please comment, for if there’s something I’m missing, let me know.
Karly Campbell says
This recipe has 8 net carbs per serving.
Glenn Kieler says
This was outstanding! I used ground turkey and just added a little more olive oil. I’m
Trying cut down on red meat and I’ll save that for a nice ribeye
I also forgot how tough that squash is, sawzall next time
Stacey says
Brent, go by net carbs for veggies (well, actually everything )
Net carbs are the grams of total carbohydrates in a food minus its grams of total fiber. Fiber is a carbohydrate that your body can’t digest, so it doesn’t count toward the amount of carbs that can trigger an insulin response, which too much of can prevent your body from going into that ketosis state. Enjoy this great noodle replacement!
Cheryl Wahlmeier says
Good, rather sweet. How can the sauce be more tomato tasting
Karly Campbell says
You could try adding tomato paste to your sauce to give it more flavor or try a different sauce. I use and recommend Rao’s sauce…it has amazing flavor on it’s own. 🙂
Lynn says
My family did not enjoy it. Too much cheese and meat ratio that spaghetti squash got lost in it.
Karly Campbell says
Sorry to hear that this one didn’t work out for you.
Tom says
funny, i find theres not enough meat or cheese. i adjusted and its great. was surprised about the cream cheese sour cream combo instead or ricotta but it works. I add an egg an a little of the shredded cheese to help it bind.
Janet Kingsley says
I like the idea of the egg to bind it. I make other casseroles using spaghetti squash (spaghetti squash pizza bake) and I use an egg. I’m making this today.
PATRICIA F CLARK says
Can this be made in a crock pot and if so cook for how long on low or high. 8 made it once baked Andover it but am making it for a party and want to keep it warm
Karly Campbell says
Hi Patricia! I’ve only made this in the oven. I think it could work in a crockpot, but not sure how long it will take.
Dena Ruple says
Sooooo good!! Thank you!
Cherrie Dreifurst says
Can the leftovers be frozen?
Karly Campbell says
I haven’t frozen it myself. Sometimes cream cheese gets weird in the freezer, but otherwise it should be fine.
Janice says
This is one of my family’s favourite low-carb recipes! I use 1.5 lb of ground meat (usually moose!) so there will be plenty for both layers. I also like to add a bit of cottage cheese just because. Delish!
Karly Campbell says
Yum! Thanks for sharing!