Healthy Rainbow Pasta Recipe

With summer approaching and some lovely warm weather already here, I’d like to reduce to a minimum the time that I spend cooking, and I’m always looking for some easy recipe that is quick to prepare and light, but still delicious like this healthy rainbow pasta recipe.

What makes an healthy pasta recipe

Adding a good mix of vegetables to the pasta sauce is always a good way to ensure I’m taking care of the healthy side. But it can take long to prepare a good sauce, and we risk to lose the great part of the nutritional values of the vegetables with the high temperature and the long cooking time.

Stir frying is a healthy cooking method, as it’s quite quick, it avoids nutrients loss in the vegetables, furthermore it does not require much oil to cook, cutting down on the added fat that might add too many calories to the recipe.

I’ve chosen a sweet pea pasta, which is still tasteful, but firstly, has a lower caloric content compared to normal wheat pasta (170 calories for 100g instead of the 359 calories for 100g of traditional durum wheat pasta). Secondly, its green colour is perfect for this rainbow recipe. I’ve found it at Sainsbury’s but seen many similar in Aldi and Asda as well, so it should be quite easy to find.

It cooks in only 7 minutes, which is more or less the time that you need to stir fry the vegetables, ensuring you can prepare it in 10/15 min max, considering the time to boil the water and to chop the vegetables.

The result is a lovely pasta that tastes like summer and the crunchy vegetables add a pleasurable consistency to this rainbow recipe. It’s very eye pleasing too, so what more can you ask from your healthy and quick recipe?

Healthy Rainbow pasta recipe

INGREDIENTS for 1 person

70g of sweet pea pasta

1 garlic clove

100g of plum tomatoes

1/2 courgette

½ orange pepper

5 Fresh basil leaves

A pinch of salt

A splash of Extra virgin olive oil

Grated parmesan cheese

PREPARATION

Put abundant water in a pot, and leave it to boil adding the salt straight on. (In this way you don’t risk that the water loses its boiling point as it would do if you add it just before the pasta). In the meantime, wash and chop the vegetables in medium squares. Finely chop the garlic clove.

Put the oil in a pan (or in a wok, that would do perfectly for this recipe!), and add the finely chopped garlic. Wait until it turns slightly golden and add the chopped vegetables.

Chopped vegetables — Chopped peppers, tomatoes, and courgettes to add all the colours to the recipe

Keep them on medium heat, turning them often. Towards the end add three or four chopped basil leaves, keeping a couple of leaves aside to garnish the plate.

As soon as the water boils, add the pasta and let it cook according to the pasta you chose.

Make sure you taste it and drain it at the proper time on order for it to be “al dente” (Italian way of saying that it still has a bit of consistency under your teeth J ), overcooked pasta its more difficult to digest and has a much higher glycaemic index (Look at the end of the recipe to know what does it mean).

SERVING

Drain the pasta and add it to the stir fry, saute it quickly with the veggies, turn off the fire and transfer it onto the plate. Add the remaining basil leaves, and a sprinkle of grated parmesan, and your healthy rainbow pasta is ready to eat…buon appetito! (Which is the Italian way of saying enjoy, almost mandatory before eating pasta).

Health note: A higher glycaemic index means that it creates a spike of glucose in your blood afterwards: it is not good for your health and will make you feel hungry quicker after eating it, and is a no go for people suffering from diabetes, compromising the healthy quality of the recipe, so be careful to drain the pasta at the proper time!