The Secret To Cooking The Perfect Spaghetti Squash Is All In The Shape

The fact that we can take a large, bulbous squash and cook it into something that resembles spaghetti is a bit of a mind-boggler ... but we're definitely not mad about it. Spaghetti squash is an awesome shape-shifter of a vegetable, made up of long, spiralized strands that are mild enough to take on whatever flavors you add to them and sturdy enough to handle whatever ingredients you add to them. It's a weird, beautiful thing.

The rewards of the remarkably noodle-like spaghetti squash are many — it's healthy, it's hearty, it tastes good, its roasted seeds are delicious, and it'll satisfy that pasta craving. If you're a spaghetti squash lover, you probably have the process down: cut the thing in half (safely!), roast it for a long time, and scrape out those strands the best you can. But what if there's a better way?

It turns out there's a secret to perfectly-cooked spaghetti squash. One that'll save you time and effort, so you can get down to enjoying this pasta-posing veg. And it's all about the shape: think rings.

The trick to getting those long, lovely strands of spaghetti squash is all in the way you cut the squash to begin with. Most of us just hack into it until it becomes two large pieces, and then we scoop out what we can once it's cooked. But if you cut the spaghetti squash into rings rather than in two halves, you'll be helping yourself out big time.

Why? Because if you were to get some x-ray vision into the interior of the squash, you'd see that those strands of flesh that you're after aren't running through the length of the gourd as you might think — they're actually situated in a circular, horizontal fashion. So when you cut through the squash crosswise, you'll keep the length of the "noodles" intact and produce the longest possible spaghetti squash strands.

You can simply cut the squash crosswise into two halves to achieve this, but it's worth taking the extra step to cut the squash into several rings — because ultimately those rings will roast faster and allow for a much easier process of forking away the cooked, separated strands. Cut the spaghetti squash into about 1 ½ inch slices, and scoop out the seeds to create rings before roasting to perfection.

If you've made spaghetti squash before, you know that the hardest part of the whole process is cutting into that tough, thick-skinned squash but we've got some tips to help you do this safely. The most important thing is to make sure you have a very sharp knife, ideally a large chef's knife with a blade of 8 inches or more. The sharpness and size of your knife are key because you don't want to have to saw through or hack away at the skin — you need something strong and long enough to slice through the width of squash in one go. Since the squash is round and oblong, it's a tricky shape to manage while you cut, so you'll also want to make sure you have an even, flat surface.

From there, try to find the flattest section of the squash and rest it on that side. To cut into rings, hold the bottom end of the squash tightly (using a towel might help secure it) and pierce your knife into the middle of the squash, pushing the knife down and away from you in one forceful motion. From there, you can slice each half into thinner rings. Pro tip: if the squash is just too tough to get through, you can always microwave it for around five minutes to soften it up first — just make sure it's cooled and dry when you cut into it.