help me makeover my baked ziti please!

darleneasher328

I use reduced fat cheese and light sour cream.

bellesouth18

I brown my beef, then drain and rinse it under running water. This significantly reduces the amount of fat and all of those fat calories. Just cook the beef, drain and rinse it, wipe out the pan and rinse it if you want, put the beef back in the pan, then continue with the recipe.

Other than my tip above, the only other way I know to reduce it is to reduce the amounts of cheese and pasta. You could add in some veggies to increase the volume without increasing the calories so much. Cut strips of zucchini the length of the pasta and put that in with it. This way, you don't have to use so much pasta. Add carrots, onions, bell peppers, etc. Reduced fat cheese would help, too.

You have to decide if you want to have the general taste of the recipe more often OR have the "real" recipe once in a blue moon.

martow49

A good way to reduce meat - other than subbing the ground beef with ground turkey: use half the amount of meat and add same amount of finely chopped mushrooms. I throw the mushrooms in a mini-food processor and voila! If I'm making lasagna I make sure to add spinach to my ricotta mixture. I always use the skim cheeses.

Chopped zucchini or red/yellow bell peppers would be delicious too!

I never buy jar sauce - I studied in Italy and my Italian friends taught me better! It doesn't take long to make a quick marinara sauce or a meat sauce to serve on pasta and you can control the amount of sugar, salt, fat. Once you get going you'll be able to whip it up in no time.

The trick is not to use the entire block of mozzarella!! You can cut back and still have cheesy goodness.

The American Heart Association publishes some excellent cookbooks full of tasty recipes that teach you how to convert your favorites into much healthier versions. I bet their web page has some great suggestions as well! I'd stay away from the processed food as much as possible - I don't think I've made any pasta dish with jarred sauce in decades! Good lucky and very happy, healthy eating!

neanderthin

You certainly don't need 1/2 lb of cheese for a topping. Make it portion out to 12 or 16 and serve a garden salad and sliced tomatoes.

jenillawafer

In place of the 'creamy' ingredients, I use Bertolli's light Alfredo sauce. Works wonders!

Unknown

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youngmommy2

Make your own sauce!! LIke another poster said. I'm also Italian and grew up on homemade sauce it is really easy. If you use a jar make it just a tomato basil or marinara not meat sauce and only use 1 jar.

also use lean beef and cut it to a half pound. Sometimes I use two Italian sausage links instead(cut the casings off) It adds a lot of flavor.

cut back on cheese. sometimes what ill do is add a ton more cheese to 2/3 of the pan for my family and I eat off the other side. get rid of the ricotta. save it for lasagna

add roasted red peppers and onion for bulk if your family permits or just eat a big whole heaping pile of veggies with it. Put it all together on the same plate for yourself so your plate looks full

My baked Ziti looks like this on a busy night where I forgot to pull sauce out of the freezer.

1 box of whole wheat pasta or Barilla plus (slightly less than 1 lb but you wont notice)
1 jar of tomato basil sauce
2 cups of part skim Mozzarella
1/2 lb of lean ground beef

8 servings at around 371 Cals per serving

Feeds my family of four with leftovers

YesJessYes

OK, this is a little radical. We very rarely make pasta anymore, but when we do it's whole wheat, homemade tomato sauce, and very lean ground turkey. Maybe a sprinkle of fat free feta on top.

But I REALLY like this now. http://allrecipes.com/recipe/spaghetti-squash-i/
147 kcal

1 spaghetti squash, halved lengthwise and seeded
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 1/2 cups chopped tomatoes
3/4 cup crumbled feta cheese I used fat free)
3 tablespoons sliced black olives
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil

After a while, you'll be amazed at what you can get used to.

debbiedoeshealth

I add ground vegetables to anything that calls for ground meat. In my spaghetti sauce I use my food processor to grind, carrots, broccoli, peppers, onions, garlic, zucchini, mushrooms ..any vegetable I have on hand really. It really adds to the nutritional content and makes the meet go farther reducing the calories.

77tes

Instead of 8 servings, make yours a 12th. It tastes amazing and you reduce the calories substantially. It should be more like 400 calories per serving. This is how I roll with all my family's favorites.

katielauren2001

Extra lean ground beef and make your own sauce. I would stick to regular cheeses to be honest, I have no idea what kind of things are in low- fat cheese.

Make sure you still drain the fat from the beef also, even though its extra lean it will still have some fat to drain.

Try it with quinoa pasta instead of regular pasta.

Make a smaller portion and serve with a heap of vegetables.

Amandawith3kids

can u keep it in therotaion but maybe just once a month? maybe work out and extra half hour or hour on the day you know you are going to have it so you can make room for it calorically???

it is already only once a month. i have 4 weeks of meal plans, that i rotate through monthly, with a crap foods week thrown in here and there as budget dictates. we do have lasagna once a month too, but thats not quite so many calories because its a bigger pan i do the tdee method, so i dont eat back my exercise calories, i dont even track them, just minutes exercised.


to update:
went grocery shopping, went over budget (ugh) but i got fat free ricotta, 93% ground turkey, and i already had some mozzarella, so i'll just use that, which amounts to about half of the normal amount. i also got different sauce, this new kind is organic marinara, one marinara and one tomato basil. i'll make my own sauce next time, when i have a bit more money. 100 bucks doesnt go very far.

LosingItForGood13

Ground chicken or turkey instead of ground beef

knra_grl

can u keep it in therotaion but maybe just once a month? maybe work out and extra half hour or hour on the day you know you are going to have it so you can make room for it calorically???

it is already only once a month. i have 4 weeks of meal plans, that i rotate through monthly, with a crap foods week thrown in here and there as budget dictates. we do have lasagna once a month too, but thats not quite so many calories because its a bigger pan i do the tdee method, so i dont eat back my exercise calories, i dont even track them, just minutes exercised.


to update:
went grocery shopping, went over budget (ugh) but i got fat free ricotta, 93% ground turkey, and i already had some mozzarella, so i'll just use that, which amounts to about half of the normal amount. i also got different sauce, this new kind is organic marinara, one marinara and one tomato basil. i'll make my own sauce next time, when i have a bit more money. 100 bucks doesnt go very far.

Totally hear that! One night I went to pick up ingredients for something which included a few different kinds of cheese (think it was baked tortellini) and I had to to a double take at the total! Sure I could have just had it with the sauce but the cheese made it totally worth it!

hiyamippa

I make a separate dish for myself by measuring out the pasta and sauce, using low fat cottage cheese (protein!) and a couple of tablespoons of grated Parmesan. I don't love cheese so this is a great alternative for my family-we all get the dinner we like and I don't feel guilty. Serve it with roasted broccoli or cauliflower and yum!

ndj1979

OK, this is a little radical. We very rarely make pasta anymore, but when we do it's whole wheat, homemade tomato sauce, and very lean ground turkey. Maybe a sprinkle of fat free feta on top.

But I REALLY like this now. http://allrecipes.com/recipe/spaghetti-squash-i/
147 kcal

1 spaghetti squash, halved lengthwise and seeded
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 1/2 cups chopped tomatoes
3/4 cup crumbled feta cheese I used fat free)
3 tablespoons sliced black olives
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil

After a while, you'll be amazed at what you can get used to.

NO …thats all I got...