Pasta portion control hack!
ticklepocket
Posts: 36 Member
One of my craves is pasta and I have struggled with it because of portion control issues. Pasta is one of those foods that "calls to me" if a pot of it is cooked and in my refrigerator. (Either you know what I mean by that or you don't.) This works for me because I cannot resist leftovers in the refrigerator. If leftovers do not torment you then skip this.
So I needed a way to quickly and easily cook a single serving of pasta and I found one!
I have found if you put a single serving size of uncooked dry pasta (1/2 cup) in a high-sided bowl with an equal amount of water (1/2 cup) into the microwave for 2:30 minutes, stir, then another 2:30 minutes you end up with one serving of cooked pasta!
Some tips:
Obviously, add whatever veggies make you happy!
I keep a jar of pasta sauce in the refrigerator to pour over this. I also use avocado sauce, thai peanut sauce and curry sauce. (I used to use a parmesan-greek yogurt pseudo-alfredo sauce but I had to substitute swiss cheese for the parmesan because I am now restricting sodium due to high blood pressure.)
But any sauce or salad dressing would work. You can even make a single serving of pasta salad if that is your crave! The point is that it is super quick and there are no leftovers to torment you.
Maybe everyone already knew about this. I didn't and figuring it out has really helped me so I wanted to share.
God bless you and best wishes in your journey toward health!
So I needed a way to quickly and easily cook a single serving of pasta and I found one!
I have found if you put a single serving size of uncooked dry pasta (1/2 cup) in a high-sided bowl with an equal amount of water (1/2 cup) into the microwave for 2:30 minutes, stir, then another 2:30 minutes you end up with one serving of cooked pasta!
Some tips:
- This works best (for me) with macaroni because it measures up properly (but if you experiment maybe you can get this to work with other shapes)
- I don't know if this would scale up to more servings.
- The cooking utensil needs to be high and deep because it will boil up during cooking.
- Adjust the times for your pasta and your microwave.
Obviously, add whatever veggies make you happy!
I keep a jar of pasta sauce in the refrigerator to pour over this. I also use avocado sauce, thai peanut sauce and curry sauce. (I used to use a parmesan-greek yogurt pseudo-alfredo sauce but I had to substitute swiss cheese for the parmesan because I am now restricting sodium due to high blood pressure.)
But any sauce or salad dressing would work. You can even make a single serving of pasta salad if that is your crave! The point is that it is super quick and there are no leftovers to torment you.
Maybe everyone already knew about this. I didn't and figuring it out has really helped me so I wanted to share.
God bless you and best wishes in your journey toward health!
4
Replies
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I love pasta. And my friends in Italy love Pasta as well. They do not have weight problems. Europeans consume much smaller portions than mega size portions in America.1
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I weigh my pasta and cook 50 or 100 grams for one or two days. No, I don't have the problem of it calling for me, but I think it's important to be accurate with calorie dense foods.0
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I cooked some brown rice fettucini for my family the oher night. Based on dry pre-weighing to stay within my calorie goal, I decided that 8 noodles was all I was going to eat. When dinner was ready, I individually placed 8 cooked noodles onto my plate. Felt just a tad OCD!0
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I cook an entire box of elbow noodles and then put them in a gallon freezer bag laying them out as flat as I can. Then they don't stick together after frozen. Then I just take a bit out of the freezer at a time as I need them. I've tried to freeze other types of pasta, but the elbow noodles seem to be the only ones that work well for me like this. You can then put them in the microwave to heat them back up.1
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ticklepocket wrote: »One of my craves is pasta and I have struggled with it because of portion control issues. Pasta is one of those foods that "calls to me" if a pot of it is cooked and in my refrigerator. (Either you know what I mean by that or you don't.) This works for me because I cannot resist leftovers in the refrigerator. If leftovers do not torment you then skip this.
So I needed a way to quickly and easily cook a single serving of pasta and I found one!
I have found if you put a single serving size of uncooked dry pasta (1/2 cup) in a high-sided bowl with an equal amount of water (1/2 cup) into the microwave for 2:30 minutes, stir, then another 2:30 minutes you end up with one serving of cooked pasta!
Some tips:- This works best (for me) with macaroni because it measures up properly (but if you experiment maybe you can get this to work with other shapes)
- I don't know if this would scale up to more servings.
- The cooking utensil needs to be high and deep because it will boil up during cooking.
- Adjust the times for your pasta and your microwave.
Obviously, add whatever veggies make you happy!
I keep a jar of pasta sauce in the refrigerator to pour over this. I also use avocado sauce, thai peanut sauce and curry sauce. (I used to use a parmesan-greek yogurt pseudo-alfredo sauce but I had to substitute swiss cheese for the parmesan because I am now restricting sodium due to high blood pressure.)
But any sauce or salad dressing would work. You can even make a single serving of pasta salad if that is your crave! The point is that it is super quick and there are no leftovers to torment you.
Maybe everyone already knew about this. I didn't and figuring it out has really helped me so I wanted to share.
God bless you and best wishes in your journey toward health!
Thank you so much for this great idea! I will definitely do this from now on. I too, struggle with the pasta "calling me" either from the pot of pasta with cheesy goodness or from the fridge! I sometimes feel bad that I haven't been making Mac and cheese as much for my teen daughter due to my addiction to pasta. I made it the other evening for her and found myself scooping up another 1/2 cup (total of 1 cup) Mac and cheese for myself. That's not horrible but it made me use up more calories than what I would have wanted that day. This will be great because I can make what I need for myself and for her so she can still eat her Mac and cheese. Love this! Thanks
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ticklepocket wrote: »One of my craves is pasta and I have struggled with it because of portion control issues. Pasta is one of those foods that "calls to me" if a pot of it is cooked and in my refrigerator. (Either you know what I mean by that or you don't.) This works for me because I cannot resist leftovers in the refrigerator. If leftovers do not torment you then skip this.
So I needed a way to quickly and easily cook a single serving of pasta and I found one!
I have found if you put a single serving size of uncooked dry pasta (1/2 cup) in a high-sided bowl with an equal amount of water (1/2 cup) into the microwave for 2:30 minutes, stir, then another 2:30 minutes you end up with one serving of cooked pasta!
Some tips:- This works best (for me) with macaroni because it measures up properly (but if you experiment maybe you can get this to work with other shapes)
- I don't know if this would scale up to more servings.
- The cooking utensil needs to be high and deep because it will boil up during cooking.
- Adjust the times for your pasta and your microwave.
Obviously, add whatever veggies make you happy!
I keep a jar of pasta sauce in the refrigerator to pour over this. I also use avocado sauce, thai peanut sauce and curry sauce. (I used to use a parmesan-greek yogurt pseudo-alfredo sauce but I had to substitute swiss cheese for the parmesan because I am now restricting sodium due to high blood pressure.)
But any sauce or salad dressing would work. You can even make a single serving of pasta salad if that is your crave! The point is that it is super quick and there are no leftovers to torment you.
Maybe everyone already knew about this. I didn't and figuring it out has really helped me so I wanted to share.
God bless you and best wishes in your journey toward health!
Pasta is probably one of my favorite meal choices. I'm curious about the avocado sauce you mentioned, do you have a recipe for it?0 -
ticklepocket wrote: »One of my craves is pasta and I have struggled with it because of portion control issues. Pasta is one of those foods that "calls to me" if a pot of it is cooked and in my refrigerator. (Either you know what I mean by that or you don't.) This works for me because I cannot resist leftovers in the refrigerator. If leftovers do not torment you then skip this.
So I needed a way to quickly and easily cook a single serving of pasta and I found one!
I have found if you put a single serving size of uncooked dry pasta (1/2 cup) in a high-sided bowl with an equal amount of water (1/2 cup) into the microwave for 2:30 minutes, stir, then another 2:30 minutes you end up with one serving of cooked pasta!
Some tips:- This works best (for me) with macaroni because it measures up properly (but if you experiment maybe you can get this to work with other shapes)
- I don't know if this would scale up to more servings.
- The cooking utensil needs to be high and deep because it will boil up during cooking.
- Adjust the times for your pasta and your microwave.
Obviously, add whatever veggies make you happy!
I keep a jar of pasta sauce in the refrigerator to pour over this. I also use avocado sauce, thai peanut sauce and curry sauce. (I used to use a parmesan-greek yogurt pseudo-alfredo sauce but I had to substitute swiss cheese for the parmesan because I am now restricting sodium due to high blood pressure.)
But any sauce or salad dressing would work. You can even make a single serving of pasta salad if that is your crave! The point is that it is super quick and there are no leftovers to torment you.
Maybe everyone already knew about this. I didn't and figuring it out has really helped me so I wanted to share.
God bless you and best wishes in your journey toward health!
Pasta is probably one of my favorite meal choices. I'm curious about the avocado sauce you mentioned, do you have a recipe for it?
I know! I want the avocado sauce recipe also!0 -
I simply cook the amount I want -- one serving for me, more if I am cooking for others too. I don't keep leftover pasta. That said, it's not about it calling to me, but about it being fast to cook anyway (even on the stove--never tried the microwave) and not saving that well. What I have found is that once I stopped thinking I should eat until I didn't want to anymore and simply ate what was on my plate (well, unless at a restaurant) with no seconds, I stopped having any urge to get seconds.
I either make a meat or marinara sauce or -- more often -- whip up a quick topping with olive oil, lean meat, and lots of vegetables (I put lots of vegetables in my meat sauce too).
I agree that normal US serving sizes of pasta are out of control and find the 56 g (2 oz) serving is plenty, and sometimes have less (with lots of sauce/topping it is plenty filling). I used to misjudge how much the dry would make once cooked, make way too much, and end up thinking there wasn't enough for a full second serving so I'd eat it all (even if I ate more than I really wanted). Stopping this, which was easy once I started focusing on portions and weighing (although measuring would work), ended my issue with overeating pasta.
My biggest issue with fitting pasta in was protein, so I make sure any pasta meal includes some extra protein and, of course, lots of veg.1 -
have you ever tried shiritaki noodles? they look exactly like pasta... 8 carbs for an entire package! I understand it doesn't taste EXACTLY like pasta, but I think its pretty similar.1
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I just weigh out and cook one serving in a small pan... cups are not accurate when weighing any kind of pasta, if you give the cup a shake you can fit more in. Maybe it's just me, but it seems a bit too complicated and inaccurate to use a cup and a microwave. Am I missing something?1
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lemurcat12 wrote: »I simply cook the amount I want -- one serving for me, more if I am cooking for others too. I don't keep leftover pasta. That said, it's not about it calling to me, but about it being fast to cook anyway (even on the stove--never tried the microwave) and not saving that well. What I have found is that once I stopped thinking I should eat until I didn't want to anymore and simply ate what was on my plate (well, unless at a restaurant) with no seconds, I stopped having any urge to get seconds.
I either make a meat or marinara sauce or -- more often -- whip up a quick topping with olive oil, lean meat, and lots of vegetables (I put lots of vegetables in my meat sauce too).
Changing attitudes changes everything
This is so sad and funny because it's exactly what I used to do/think tooI agree that normal US serving sizes of pasta are out of control and find the 56 g (2 oz) serving is plenty, and sometimes have less (with lots of sauce/topping it is plenty filling). I used to misjudge how much the dry would make once cooked, make way too much, and end up thinking there wasn't enough for a full second serving so I'd eat it all (even if I ate more than I really wanted). Stopping this, which was easy once I started focusing on portions and weighing (although measuring would work), ended my issue with overeating pasta.
My biggest issue with fitting pasta in was protein, so I make sure any pasta meal includes some extra protein and, of course, lots of veg.
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Thanks to everyone for all the great ideas.
Regarding the questions about the Avocado Sauce...
The recipes I use myself are kind of odd because I am focused on low sodium now because of blood pressure issues, so I think it would be more helpful to point you in the general direction rather than give you specific recipes.
So, here is the quick answer: The place to find recipes for avocado sauce (and loads of other healthy sauces) is Pinterest under "Zoodles" or "Zucchini Noodles." When reading the recipes, just skip the part about the shredded veggies and focus on the sauce part.
Here is my Pinterest board filled with Zoodle recipes: https://www.pinterest.com/lepanto/zoodles-spiralizer-recipes-veggie-noodles-courgett/
People who are into zoodles tend to be very health conscious and the sauces they develop for their veggie pastas are usually very healthy, one way or another...
I say "one way or another" because there are many approaches including paleo, vegan, low sodium, etc... So you kind of need to poke around to find something that works for you. Also some recipes are very elaborate with loads of ingredients and some are ultra simple consisting of throwing some avocadoes into a blender with some seasoning. Again, it is all about finding what works for you.
I got into zoodles a while back in an attempt to tame my pasta cravings. I'm still a fan but less enthusiastic. Zoodles are less satisfying and trickier to work with than real pasta and unlike pasta, zucchinis go bad quickly in the refrigerator. But my exploration of zoodles led me to a treasure chest of interesting, satisfying, delicious and healthy sauces that I now use for many things.
If you want to skip the Pinterest part you can just Google "Zoodle recipes" or here are some examples:
http://kirbiecravings.com/2015/08/skinny-bang-bang-zucchini-noodles.html
http://www.tastingpage.com/cooking/spicy-avocado-sauce-zoodles-chicken?rq=zoodles
http://rawmazing.com/recipe/raw-avocado-kale-pesto-with-zucchini-noodles/
I hope you have as much fun with these sauces as I have!
God bless you and best wishes in your journey toward health!
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