This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Friendship Dairies. All opinions are 100% mine.

Do you crave those cheese filled casseroles? I’ll admit, I sure do! Maybe though you are looking for a better-for-you option? If so, this Cheesy Meaty Spaghetti Squash is the perfect meal to make!

This dish combines basically my favorite foods into one, bursting with flavor, meal! I’ve mentioned many times at this point that my husband and I are on a wellness journey, taking it one day at a time and changing the way we eat. We both had specific goals in mind; however, our main goal was to realistically change the way we eat, not a crash and burn, then regain diet. That meant for me, I decided to look for better ways to make some of those foods that we crave. It’s interesting though after just over 4 weeks now, we don’t even crave those bad foods. Honestly, they aren’t even that appetizing anymore to look at. I am loading up each week on high protein foods, fruits, and vegetables. My favorite though that we pick up every single week is Friendship Dairies Cottage Cheese. I love that you get a good boost of protein, plus I happen to love cottage cheese.

Now, the kicker is my husband cannot stand cottage cheese. I set out though to change his mind on that. I knew that I wanted to make something that was similar to a pasta dish, but way less calories and carbs, also I wanted some protein in there too. I used Friendship Dairies cottage cheese, but I blended it in a food processor until it was nice and smooth. At this point it had the consistency and likeness of Mozzarella, only it was actually cottage cheese. Once I had our meat sauce and spaghetti squash ready, I spread the cottage cheese on top and broiled it in the oven for a few minutes. The result was a cheesy delight that was packed with protein. Honestly, I don’t think anyone would have guessed that I used cottage cheese. The best part, my kids LOVED it just as much as we did. They didn’t realize they were eating a vegetable too and not spaghetti. I seriously felt like I deserved multiple gold stars. It was so good in fact, we had leftovers for lunch the next day too. The portions are perfect so you get just the right amount of cottage cheese without over doing it and it makes for a very low-calorie meal when combined with spaghetti squash and lean ground turkey.

This was the first time I had tried blending the cottage cheese and now I intend to do that more. I may even try it on an eggplant lasagna next or pizza maybe? Really, it works so well. The key is you want a thick cottage cheese.

Friendship Dairies is high quality cottage cheese and it’s very thick. It also doesn’t have that watery, runny top to it either, it’s filled with cottage cheese right up to the top of the carton. This is the only cottage cheese that I have seen where there isn’t that watery top when you open the carton.

Now, I’m already hungry just looking at this again. I just can’t even express how tasty it was! I’m looking forward to making it again.

Have you tried cottage cheese in baking? What do you use it for? Enjoy!