Pasta is definitely my favourite food. I love that when you choose the right pasta, you can eat it without guilt, a fact most people don’t know! The trick is to stay away from the regular pasta that is just refined wheat flour that really contains little nutrients and causes a quick spike in blood sugar. I am talking about the light coloured pasta you will find in any store. Catelli comes to mind…
Your body runs on carbohydrates, this is actually the fuel it needs. The trick is to keep a lot of fibre in your diet and to consume complex carbohydrates such as veggies and whole grains, so that there is a slow release of energy. Choose a great pasta and pile veggies onto your pasta sauce and you can easily achieve that!
There are so many whole grain pastas on the shelves now that you have a huge choice of healthy options. Some of the more prominent pasta varieties out there are: Quinoa, Brown Rice, Buckwheat, Whole Grain, Flax, Soba, Soybean, chickpea, black bean, Kamut, Green Pea, Red Lentil, Sprouted Grain, Spelt, spiralized raw zucchini… the list goes on and on. Obviously the healthiest varieties are the ones with the least ingredients. Keep it simple. Look for organic where you can and few ingredients. No egg or dairy please. 🙂
One brand I like to use is from Costco. It’s called More Than Pasta, and comes in Green Pea and Red Lentil. They have one ingredient… red lentil or green pea… That blows my mind! So really, you are eating a fibre rich legume, which is a complex carbohydrate and is super healthy. You are avoiding “enriched” wheat flour, which is a simple carbohydrate and not something that is a healthful choice for your body.
Another great brand is gluten free Tru Roots Ancient Grain Pasta. It tastes like “regular” white pasta even though it has only the following ingredients: organic; brown rice flour, quinoa flour, amaranth flour and corn flour. This brand can also be found at Costco, as well as other health food and regular grocery stores. This pasta is healthy and full of fibre. Don’t forget, just because it is gluten free does not mean it is healthy, it simply means it is void of any gluten which can be bothersome to some people’s digestive system. If you have digestive issues you may want to have food sensitivity testing done to rule out gluten sensitivity or allergy. If you are not gluten sensitive, there is no reason to avoid gluten. 
When creating your pasta dish, think of trying to make your serving mostly vegetables and sauce and partially pasta. My favourite quick meal is stir frying up broccoli, cauliflower and mushrooms with sliced Swiss chard and fresh garlic. Add in some good quality, store bought spicy red pasta sauce and you have an amazing meal! No, not everything needs to be made from scratch! Honestly, everyone is busy, don’t beat yourself up! Topping it off with some nutritional yeast is a way to add cheesy flavour and vitamin B12! Other quick options are switching out these veggies and using artichoke hearts, red peppers and olives for more of a mediterranean twist.
As I write this, I am enjoying a quickly tossed together dish of super spicy red sauce with whole grain linguine, “nooch” (nutritional yeast) and steamed beet tops. 🙂
A couple of years ago now, my husband and I went to Italy and travelled from Venice to Rome enjoying the country and food along the way. I was in heaven. Every night I ate the same thing… Spicy red sauce on pasta with vegetables. Pasta and red wine paired with good company – life doesn’t get any better! I think my spirit is secretly half Italian, half Hawaiian. 😉
Even though these are some great quick options, there are also times when you want to spend more time creating a more impressive, delicious dish that has a creamy quality without using cholesterol filled regular cream. I love this amazing dish that is simple to make and prepare in advance so that it just takes a couple of minutes to cook immediately before eating. This is great for a big group served with chopped veggies or salad and bread. It is filling and has that comfort food quality. You just have to serve it immediately because it tends to cool off quickly!
Thank you Angela Liddon from Oh She Glows for creating this amazing recipe that I modified slightly.
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Instructions