Healthy Conversion: Spicy Rotini Bolognese

Delicious healthy Italian that even grandma will love!

Spicy Rotini Bolognese

  • Whole wheat pasta (serving = 2 cups cooked)
  • Shredded fat free mozzarella cheese (serving = ¼ cup)
  • Bolognese sauce (serving = 1/16 below)
    • 64 oz Regular pasta sauce
    • 1.5 lbs extra lean (99%) ground turkey
    • ½ cup diced sweet onion
    • 2 Tbsp red wine
    • 2 Tbsp sweet BBQ sauce
    • 2 Tsp balsamic vinegar
    • ½ cup mix equal parts Italian seasoning, crushed red pepper, ground black pepper

pasta

The sweet elements work with the spiciness of the red and black pepper to create an almost addictive flavor.  For the sauce base, obviously use your own if you have time to cook, otherwise just use your preferred jarred sauce.  Prego is good if you like it a little sweeter.  Francesco Rinaldi is good if you like it less sweet.  Both come in large containers from warehouse stores and some local supermarkets.  Trader Joe’s carries the extra lean ground turkey at a very good price.

Here’s the key: most recipes will tell you to cook the meat first and then add the sauce.  Totally silly b/c you wind up double cooking the meat and it winds up dry even sitting in a vat of sauce.  Particularly when using lean meat, be cautions about overcooking.  I add everything at the same time and slow cook the sauce with a low flame over an hour or so- the meat is always plenty cooked but still moist.

As most people, I’m busy so I usually make 2lbs of pasta and store that and the sauce in an air-tight containers in the fridge.  This way, I have a delicious and super healthy meal in minutes anytime I want for the rest of the week!

NUTRITION FACTS

Restaurant Rotini Bolognese Healthy Rotini Bolognese
Serving size 275 g 275 g
Calories 460 320
Total fat 22 g 2 g
Saturated fat 10 g 1 g
Trans fat 1 g 0 g
Cholesterol 70 mg 10 mg
Fiber 5 g 12 g
Protein 22 g 26 g

Stay tuned and stay healthy!

Informative: Not So Fun Facts About Obesity

Some Not So Fun Facts About Obesity:

  1. Today, the most commonly purchased fountain drink is 1 liter, which has 30 teaspoons full of sugar.
  2. It is now statistically normal to be overweight.
  3. Obesity costs the Unites States somewhere between $100 and $200 BILLION annually
  4. For 7 million years, we have been fighting starvation. In the last hundred years we obese factssucceeded in killing more people from too much than too little food.
  5. Worldwide, 2.8 million people die each year as a result of being overweight or obese.
  6. A child who is obese at age 11 has a 70% chance of being an obese adult.
  7. The average child spends more time per year watching television than attending school.
  8. One in three children born after the year 2000 will develop diabetes.
  9. Childhood obesity is strongly correlated with increased rates of premature death.
  10. Children today have a shorter life expectancy than their parents for the first time in 100 years.

Here’s another great one: we are the first generation not expected to live longer than our parents.  Anybody have a guess as to why that might be?