8 Healthy Pasta Alternatives
If only there were some pasta alternatives that were as quick, convenient and versatile as the regular stuff but that wasn’t made of refined white flour (and gluten too, for those sensitive to it).
Well there is……it’s pasta, but not as you know it!
Look I understand, pasta with grated cheese and frozen peas is served up probably a little too often even in my house.
Sometimes because it’s time to go food shopping (which I hate and procrastinate over).
Sometimes because I’ve been busy and now I don’t have time to make anything else and now the kids and hungry and whinging.
Or maybe it’s you who’s hungry and whinging?! Perfectly acceptable of course.
Anyway there are some other just as easy options that are healthier in one way or another.
Here 8 great healthy pasta alternatives:
1) Spiralized courgette, squash, or carrot – a spiralizer costs around £25 from Lakeland and it’s really quick to use, or I’ve seen ready to use spiralized veggies in Waitrose and Tesco.
2) Pasta made from other grains and legumes (lentils, chickpeas, spelt etc)
3) Even better for vegetarians and vegans especially is quinoa spaghetti as quinoa is one of the only vegan sources of ‘complete protein’ (i.e. it’s good!)
4) Cauliflower rice – just blitz raw cauli in a blender until it resembles rice then stir fry. Portion and freeze the raw rice for when you need it, or again Tesco & Waitrose sell ready to cook fresh ones, or for longer life store cupboard ’emergency’ pack try this.
5) Just sauce on veg! Seriously – chicken stir fried with soy and garlic piled on one of those boxed ready to cook stir fries instead of wheat noodles. Can’t get much easier than that! Or Bolognese on a pile of steamed greens.
Many of the ingredients can be found on buywholefoodsonline here, use code POLLY-IMZB to get 5% off all orders!
6) ….which reminds me of a cabbage carbonara I made once – shredded steamed white cabbage with bacon, garlic and an egg stirred through at the end. OMG that one was goooood!
7) Seaweed spaghetti – bit more grown up this one, but the texture is like al dente spaghetti and it’s of course brilliant for stir fries.
8) Konjac pasta – konjac is a fibre which forms a firm gel and is made into pasta, noodles etc. It’s almost calorie free and fibre is obviously good for you.
I can’t make my mind up on the Konjac pasta. They’re a bit weird tasting but some people love them. If you’ve tried them (or do try them after reading this) could you please comment below and let me know what you think?! They’re such a clever idea but I’m not sure about the texture!
Thanks, looking forward to hearing from you.
Polly ‘lazy cook’ Hale
xxx