This post was originally published on October 11, 2022.
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In my quest to eat cleaner and healthier, I’ve settled on a particular method of cooking a cleaner, healthier spaghetti dinner. Exciting, right? I know!
It’s not a recipe, per se. Some may even argue that it’s not really cooking. More like heating up what Trader Joe’s made. Which, ok, maybe it is. But it tastes really good, it’s quick and easy and it’s good for you, so who cares!
I’ve been super intentional about the packaged foods I buy and reading the labels to ensure the ingredients are words I can pronounce. So often that’s much harder than it really should be. But I’ve found some that are Whole30 compliant and others that are vegetables instead of super starchy pasta.
The wonderful thing about replacing traditional pasta with vegetables that imitate the pasta experience is that, so often, it’s more filling and satisfying!
Now that I’ve sufficiently whetted your appetite and you’re all like, get on with it already, here you go:
Healthy Spaghetti
Organic sauce (I like this one from Aldi)
Hearts of Palm pasta from Trader Joe’s
Hot Italian chicken sausage from Trader Joe’s
Fresh sliced mushrooms
I like to start with heating the sauce and mushrooms in my pretty yellow Le Creuset dutch oven.
While those warm up, I cut up the chicken sausage and plop it in.
Then I cover it.
I leave it on medium-low heat to complete cooking. Who am I kidding, I constantly turn the heat up and down because I’m impatient. Don’t be like me, keep it low and slow.
Oh! Stir it every so often!
Once it looks pretty hot and has some nice bubbling (probably too hot), add the heart of palm noodles and stir it in. Continue heating for another few minutes; 5-7 should do.
Once completely cooked, spoon onto a plate bowl, add some parmesan and enjoy!
Noodle variations:
Either a freshly roasted spaghetti squash or the TJ’s dried version that comes in a box. I like this option because the squash keeps in the refrigerator for leftovers pretty well.
Either freshly made zoodles or a frozen variety. With the fresh ones, I prefer to just toss them in the sauce once it’s been heated through. Zoodles tend to cook quickly and can go from fine to overcooked in a split second and I would rather have them al dente. For frozen zoodles, you may want to heat up in a separate pan so that you can drain them because they have tons of water and it’ll make your healthy spaghetti more like a soggy, soupy situation than an actual thick sauce experience.
I hope you enjoy my healthy way of making spaghetti! Let me know if you try it out or if you modify anything!
If it completely blows your mind, I def want to know!
