It may sound unconventional, but mixing spiralized vegetables into pasta dishes is a great way to get more nutrients into your meal, including vitamins and fiber.
In addition to the nutrition benefits, adding veggies into your pasta can be useful when you're trying to reduce food waste or use up pantry items. Especially during the COVID-19 outbreak, making ingredients stretch into as many meals as possible has become more important than ever for a lot of us, as we all avoid unnecessary trips to the grocery store to reduce the spread of the virus. It's a practice that can also reduce your food waste and save you money any time, though.
Only have a half a box of pasta? Bolster it with spaghetti squash or spiralize that extra zucchini, carrots or parsnips in your fridge. If you don't have a spiralizer, you can use a vegetable peeler to cut the vegetable you're using into long, thin ribbons.
In this delicious recipe, we topped spiralized carrots and whole-wheat spaghetti with a flavorful, hearty ragu sauce made with ground turkey, canned tomatoes, leeks, celery and spices.
Once you try it, you may be inspired to try a low-carb recipe where veggie spirals completely replace pasta, like our Chicken Parmesan or Pad Thai with zucchini noodles.
Turkey Ragu Over Carrot And Spaghetti
(Downloadable/printable pdf of this recipe)
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
1 Tablespoon olive oil
3 garlic cloves, finely diced
1 large leek, chopped
2 celery stalks, finely chopped
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
12 ounces ground turkey breast
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 cans (15 ounces each) no-salt-added diced tomatoes
8 ounces whole-wheat spaghetti, dry
12 ounces carrots, peeled and shaved into thin ribbons or spiralized
1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
2 Tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped
Directions
Fill a 5-quart saucepan with water and bring to a boil. Heat the olive oil in a large (14-inch) skillet over medium heat and add the garlic, leek, celery, pepper and salt. Cook until the vegetables are just tender, about 5 minutes. Add turkey and cook until browned, while stirring and finely chopping it into smaller pieces. Add the cinnamon and tomatoes, stirring until well mixed, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes.
While turkey mixture simmers, add the spaghetti to the pot of boiling water and cook according to the package directions; add the carrots for the final minute of cooking time. Once pasta is al dente (cooked but slightly firm), drain and divide evenly onto 4 plates.
Top the pasta and carrots with the turkey ragù mixture and sprinkle each serving with 1 Tablespoon Parmesan cheese and 1/2 Tablespoon chopped parsley.
Nutrition Information Per Serving: 460 Calories; 8 grams Fat; 2 grams Saturated Fat; 46 mg Cholesterol; 455 mg Sodium; 64 grams Carbohydrates; 11.5 grams Fiber; 34 grams Protein
Looking for more info and want to make an appointment with a registered dietitian? Call 1-855-434-5483 or visit Nutrition Services on henryford.com.
