20 Healthy Pasta Recipes That Are Hard Not to Love

Creamy Butternut Squash Alfredo

This alfredo sauce doesn’t have heavy cream of Parmesan cheese. Instead the creaminess comes from butternut squash, which is pureed into a pasta sauce.

That doesn’t mean this is a light dish, however, because there’s a little butter and bacon too. But it’s easy to make this meatless by leaving out the bacon, and if you’ll miss the savory flavor, serve with sautéed mushrooms instead.

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Zucchini Pasta with Creamy Mushroom Sauce

This light noodle salad is made of veggies and mushrooms, and yet it’s more satisfying than one with spaghetti and mayo.

The mix of zucchini noodles and mushrooms is a surprisingly substantial side dish, and half an avocado makes this pasta salad creamy.

If you don’t have a spiralizer to make strands of zucchini noodles, then use an old-fashioned vegetable peeler to make broad, flat pasta instead.

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Healthy Mediterranean Chicken Spaghetti Squash Bake

This pasta bake makes a delicious Sunday night dinner to gather family around the table – yet it doesn’t actually contain pasta.

The is actually a meal of roasted chicken and squash that’s disguised as baked pasta. Since spaghetti tends to get softer and take on other flavors in a casserole anyway, kids might not even be able to tell that this is spaghetti squash instead of noodles.

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Creamy Chicken Pasta Salad

No picnic or potluck is complete without a pasta salad.

This one has a little bit of everything: both bacon and chicken breast for protein, plus veggies like broccoli and bell peppers. With all that, the result still manages to be a low-fat pasta salad.

The dressing has Greek yogurt, buttermilk, and a touch of mayo for the trifecta of creaminess. And you can choose fat-free or reduced-fat versions to suit your target macros.

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Roasted Shrimp Scampi

Although this recipe doesn’t include the pasta, it only takes a pot of boiling water to turn this into shrimp linguine (or whatever your favorite style of Italian noodles happens to be).

And since the shrimp itself only takes 10 minutes to make, you can start it once your pasta of choice is in the hot water and check to see if it’s al dente while the scampi is under the broiler.

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Lightened Up Creamy Cajun Chicken

Although not a part of traditional Cajun cuisine, ingredients like pasta and muffuletta were readily integrated when Italian immigrants moved into New Orleans. And now there are great fusion dishes like this one, which has a creamy garlic sauce with cream cheese.

The Cajun spice blend shows how great the marriage between the two cuisines can be. Like Italian seasoning, it uses oregano and garlic powder – there’s just thyme and cayenne in the mix too.

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Shrimp Linguine with Lemon Garlic Butter Sauce

A shrimp pasta dish doesn’t need tomato sauce or alfredo. If you have the pasta and shrimp but no jar of sauce, you can still have a delicious 15-minute dinner.

Just think like a college kid and dress the noodles in butter – only upgraded with fresh lemon juice, parsley, and white wine. You’ll have an easy pasta dish that’s perfect for a weeknight dinner date.

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Pasta e Fagioli Soup

This is more than just an option at Olive Garden. Called pasta e fagioli, or pasta and beans, it’s a hearty Italian soup that’s made from common ingredients, so it’s an accessible dish throughout the countryside.

It’s also a cinch to cook for anyone who has a Crock Pot. Brown the beef, and let it slow cook in the soup throughout the day. Before serving, add the pasta and beans, and ladle it up once they’re tender.

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Scoglio (Seafood Pasta)

Since all of Italy is surrounded by coastline, seafood is commonly paired with pasta in local cuisine.

This healthy pasta recipe goes all out with scallops, shrimp, mussels, and clams. It might seem fancy, but it’s actually a rustic dish that’s adaptable.

Rest assured if you don’t to want to round up so much seafood, this scoglio will be delicious if you cook it with just a couple varieties.

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Skinny Pasta Primavera

When the fresh produce starts to hit the market in spring, it doesn’t take much effort to turn them into a delicious meal. Try this one-pot pasta dish for example.

It’s really as simple as putting everything into a big Dutch oven or stock pot to simmer until the ingredients are tender. Lemon juice, Parmesan, and dill are stirred in at the end for a quick sauce.

Any fresh vegetables can be used for this easy pasta primavera, and if you can find them, radicchio and fava beans will add a real taste of Italian springtime.

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Broken Pasta with Kale, Mushrooms & Sausage

If you open a box of lasagna noodles to find they’re in pieces, it’s not a total loss. You can make this hearty pasta with sausage and mushrooms.

Don’t let the rustic appearance fool you; it’s simple but has rich flavors from a butter sauce with lemon and white wine. This is one weeknight pasta dinner that won’t feel like a compromise.

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Salmon with Penne Pasta

Although salmon is not native to Italy, Italian seafood recipes can be adapted when the fish is in season.

Salmon is so delicious when broiled or grilled, it hardly needs anything else to become a great dinner. Rather than pairing it with a heavy sauce like alfredo, a little butter, lemon, and garlic are all salmon needs to become a delicious entrée to serve on a bed of whole-wheat pasta.

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Crock Pot Chicken Spaghetti with Broccoli

To make the best spaghetti, do less work. Upgrade any pasta sauce you have, whether it’s store-bought or homemade marinara, using a slow cooker.

For this Crock Pot spaghetti, the pasta is still cooked the regular way in a pot of boiling water. The chicken breast becomes perfectly tender in the spaghetti sauce, and all you have to do is leave them alone in the slow cooker for a few hours and then stir in the noodles and ricotta when ready to eat.

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Healthy Chicken Pasta Salad

From The Feed Zone Cookbook: Fast and Flavorful Food for Athletes, this simple pasta salad starts with a base of soba noodles.

They’re made from buckwheat, which like quinoa is actually a seed that can replace grains. Both whole-grain and buckwheat pasta rank low on the glycemic index and are therefore good sources of slow-digesting carbs.

However, compared to whole-wheat spaghetti, soba noodles have just two-thirds the calories.

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Easy Freezer Meatballs

Spaghetti and meatballs is already an easy dinner to make from scratch, and now it can be even more convenient on a busy weekday.

These freezer meatballs can be prepared whenever you have an hour to spare, and that includes the 25 minutes they’re in the oven.

Mince an onion, chop up some fresh parsley, and cube some bread. Then you just have to make the meatballs with egg and a whole bunch of seasonings, and throw them in the oven on a baking sheet.

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Greek Yogurt Parmesan Chicken

When you need protein to serve on top of spaghetti, keep this healthy recipe in mind.

Traditional chicken parm is coated with bread crumbs and grated cheese, and yet this version is able to use less no breading and less Parmesan. Instead the baked chicken breast is coated in Greek yogurt, Parmesan, garlic, and lemon zest.

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Kale Mint Basil Pesto

Traditional pesto is made from fresh basil, pine nuts, and olive oil, and this update doesn’t veer far off course. There’s just another herb in the mix – fresh mint – as well as the popular leafy green vegetable, lacinato or dinosaur kale.

The updated pesto can be served as many ways as the original. Stir it into any kind of noodles for a plate of pesto pasta, make a pesto pizza, or use it for a sandwich spread.

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Spinach Chicken Manicotti

There’s no shame in eating freezer meals every once in a while, especially when you prepare them from scratch ahead of time. That way you’re still having a home-cooked meal made from wholesome ingredients that you selected yourself.

Using shredded chicken and frozen spinach, this premade manicotti only takes 15 or 20 minutes to assemble. Then if you choose to stash it away for a busy day, this dinner for four will take an hour to cook from frozen.

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Mexican Manicotti

Like lasagna, manicotti can be transformed from an Italian dish to a spicy Mexican dinner.

This recipe uses refried beans and ground turkey for the pasta filling, and picante sauce (or your favorite salsa) replace the marinara. Fill the uncooked noodle shells, and bake for an hour.

Then you’ll have an awesome Mexican-Italian fusion dinner.

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Slow Cooker Vegetable Bolognese

Keep burning the pasta sauce because you forget to stir it or the lid won’t stay on tight? Prepare slow cooker pasta sauce, and it can be left simmering as long as necessary before dinner.

The method works well with any kind of sauce you’re making, including this thick and chunky vegetable marinara. When cauliflower has been pulsed in the food processor, it gives this meatless Bolognese the texture of ground beef.

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