Healthy Pasta: The Sexy, Skinny, and Smart Way to Eat Your Favorite Food

It’s no secret that Lidia Bastianich, the fairy godmother of pasta, is our mother. Lunch was never a simple sandwich with deli meat, and dinner could never be just one plate on the place setting. There was always a first course of pasta or soup and then a main course with salad, loads of vegetables, and usually fish, but sometimes meat. Growing up in her traditional Italian household was mostly a blessing, although sometimes the constant push to finish everything on the plate led to a bit of overeating. The upside of course was all the delicious food, having her feed armies of friends, and the fabulous kitchen aromas that always greeted us upon our returning home.

Mom always wanted us to get “an American job”—become a doctor or lawyer or something similar. The restaurant business, with its long hours and low profit margins, was the business of immigrants. So we both did something different for a while. Joe worked on Wall Street and I went into teaching, but the restaurant industry gets under your skin. Once you have experienced the nightly adrenaline of a restaurant pulsating with customers and the pressure of having to provide great service and a great experience for those customers, and then you get to fall back at the end of the night with a sigh of relief, it is very difficult to go back to any other kind of life.

The business of running restaurants in New York City and across the country, producing food shows for television, and writing cookbooks does not keep us far from fabulous food. Both of our daily routines vary from tasting new menu items to testing and tasting the dishes for a new cookbook or snacking on the spoils of a TV segment. All of it adds up to extra food and extra eating. It is difficult to control and most of the time it’s a professional necessity, so we literally can’t control it.

But I got to the point where something had to change. I made a conscious effort to work out. Equally important, I realized I had to modify my eating habits. Ironically enough, though, it was my love of pasta that played a major role in helping me attain my fitness goals. I began to look at food—especially pasta—as fuel for my athletic ambitions. What began as a 10K run eventually became a marathon. Marathons became triathlons, and in 2011, I had the privilege of competing in the Kona IRONMAN world triathlon championships—and it was my daily habit of eating healthy pasta dishes that helped me get there. Once running became an integral part of my daily life, I had to find a way to make the foods I loved to eat fit my new active lifestyle, and pasta was numero uno on the list.

Change isn’t always easy. But what we both learned was that great food experiences can also be healthy. In many ways, delicious food is even more delicious when it’s healthy. Pasta in particular, an Italian favorite and something we could not live without, can most definitely be healthy. As a result, we’ve been able to eat it more regularly and enjoy a greater variety. Pasta is almost an obsession with our family (as it is with many families, whether Italian or not). So once we began developing healthier pasta recipes—and learned many simple tricks to make favorite recipes healthier—our obsession grew. And eating pasta became more fun because we could do it without any guilt.

Don’t misunderstand the purpose of this book. Eating pasta seven days a week—and eating large portions—will never allow you to have a fully balanced diet or to lose weight. This book is not meant to be a fad diet or any miracle cure for weight problems. We did not set out to write Lose 200 Pounds in Two Weeks by Eating Pasta! We believe this book is a lot better than any fad diet because its effects are meant to be long lasting. It is meant to be a way to improve your eating, your health, and your life over the long haul. We know this can be done if you use the right ingredients and the right kinds of pasta, limit your portion sizes, and use many of the tricks of the trade—techniques that are easy and that we know will work because we’ve learned them over our two lifetimes spent around food.

has been saddled with a bad rap for far too long. The low-carb/no-carb diet craze ultimately instilled in many of us a belief that partaking of our beloved lasagna and spaghetti is a surefire path to a fat physique and a depressing result on our next visit to the doctor—and this just isn’t true! Eating pasta can be beneficial to our health. It is also satisfying, economical, and should be a staple in every kitchen. Deprivation in any form almost guarantees failure. Instead of giving pasta up, we spent a lot of time finding other answers—smaller portions, for example. Another idea is to prepare your pasta simply with just a few healthy ingredients—vegetables, lean meats, and fish, dressed with olive oil.

A crucial part of the cooking process is the ingredients you choose. We all love cheese and we would never write a cookbook that eliminates cheese as a pairing with pasta. But there are cheeses that contain less fat. And did you know that peeled tomatoes have less sodium, which means they taste fresher? Throughout this book, we show you ways to add flavor to a dish that will also reduce the calories. So it boils down, no pun intended, to choosing high-quality pasta, ingredients that pack a punch of flavor without loads of calories, and cooking techniques that maximize the flavors without adding fats.

Over the years we have modified how we cook at home for our families. Kids are very active and need good food fuel. Because we are always busy with work, dinner solutions need to be quick and enjoyable. All kids love pasta, so pasta it is, but not just the starch alone; there are more vegetables incorporated. We use tomato- and olive oil–based sauces and add protein-rich ingredients—often in the same or even greater ratio to the pasta in each dish. The pasta has become a vehicle by which to serve vegetables, meat, and fish. Most sauces can be made ahead of time and then just reheated and served with pasta for dinner that night. Varying the shapes is also fun for the family. Kids like to see something a bit different every night on their dinner plates. And, as you’ll see, some shapes are better for certain kinds of sauces and some shapes can even be healthier than others.

For this book, we have chosen to start with one 1-pound package of pasta per recipe and to use the whole package. Using this amount of pasta you can either feed six people or have a little bit left over to bring to work or send to school for lunch. While it is very un-Italian to eat cold pasta the next day, it is preferable to wasting food and it can be quite good that way—different tasting from when it’s just cooked. Using the whole package of pasta also means that you won’t have any of the annoying boxes in the pantry that are only partially full. Six portions—which is 75 grams per person—was our starting point. That comes to, just from the pasta alone, 250 calories per portion. Our goal was to have each recipe be less than a total of 500 calories per serving—so that left us with just under an extra 250 calories to create tasty, healthy sauces. We are proud of the fact that this book gives you guidelines for exploring healthier alternatives without compromising flavor and that every recipe serving is under 500 calories.

Quality is the key to successful pasta. Everyone knows by now that dry pasta should be cooked al dente. The reason why is less well known. Italians eat their pasta al dente—which means “to the tooth”; practically, it means removing pasta from the water when it’s still chewy enough to have some real texture and bite to it. This is a matter of preference, but there are also health benefits to cooking pasta al dente. A pasta with bite means you have to chew more, and chewing stimulates your digestive enzymes. More chewing also means a longer and slower eating time, which allows the body to feel satiated. Don’t you find that when you eat with family and friends—rather than eating alone—your food somehow tastes better? That’s because good conversations around the dinner table also translate to a slower eating time, which allows your brain to send the signal that you are full before you’ve eaten too much. So chew your al dente pasta slowly. All those times your mother told you to slow down and chew your food, she knew what she was talking about! Also, overcooked pasta has absorbed more water in the cooking process, as opposed to al dente pasta, which still has the potential to absorb digestive liquid in the stomach and therefore digest faster. Pasta cooked al dente has a lower glycemic index than overcooked pasta, so it has less impact on your blood sugar, which helps prevent cravings and provides a steadier supply of energy.

High-quality pasta is important. High-quality pasta will be made of durum wheat and the better the wheat quality, the higher the protein content in the pasta. The higher the protein percentage, the more bite the pasta has and the healthier it is. Durum wheat is the hardest wheat, and when milled, it breaks down to coarse particles, called semolina, which have an intense yellow color and nutty taste. When mixed with water and properly dried, durum wheat pasta has a great stability, which helps prevent it from being overcooked, if proper cooking instructions are followed. In 1967 in Italy, a law decreed that pasta could be made only from durum wheat, assuring that only the finest pasta would be produced there. Cheaper pasta on the shelves is not made from durum wheat and will mush up during the cooking process and be low in protein. You don’t have to buy expensive gourmet pasta, although for a special occasion some of the fancier cuts of pasta are nice. But the few extra cents or the extra dollar you spend to buy a package of pasta with a high protein content really pays off in flavor and health benefits. It bakes down to the old adage: You get what you pay for.

Ingredients that burst with flavor are also an essential part of these dishes. Much can be done with simple ingredients such as capers, olives, anchovies, and sun-dried tomatoes. All these ingredients can be purchased either soaked in oil or cured in brine or water. When possible, stay away from the oil-cured ingredients because they have absorbed the oil, adding quite a bit of fat and calories. You can buy sun-dried tomatoes and rehydrate them in water, and then use the flavorful water as part of the recipe. You can purchase capers, artichokes, and olives in brine. Not only are these healthier, they are also less costly. When handled judiciously and with the proper techniques, tasty ingredients such as pork fats and cheeses will help you to obtain maximum flavor with minimum caloric impact.

We limit the amount of olive oil in these recipes, so use good olive oil. Extra-virgin olive oil for cooking is great. You don’t have to buy expensive olive oil that is meant to be used as a raw condiment or drizzled on a finished dish. That would be overkill as well as unnecessarily costly. But do use high-quality extra-virgin olive oil meant for cooking. The better the ingredients you put in, the more flavor you get out. Many recipes call for canned tomatoes, and we suggest using Italian plum tomatoes, preferably San Marzano, because they have fewer seeds and thicker skin, and are sweeter and less acidic.

So start with a high-quality pasta and then build the flavors of your healthy dish with fresh vegetables, lean proteins, and complementary ingredients that deliver a lot of flavor in small quantities. Simple changes can make a big difference. For example, if you are lactose intolerant or just want to avoid the extra fat of cheese, you can toast bread crumbs and crushed almonds in olive oil and use the mixture to finish a dish instead of grated cheese. Oftentimes our recipes use low-fat cheeses, and it is difficult to really tell the difference; anything they might lack in flavor is compensated for by other flavor-rich ingredients. We want to teach you how to substitute or augment vegetables, and to add some extra kick with a bit more peperoncino (red pepper flakes) or a few extra capers; whatever your taste buds desire is okay, as long as you can satisfy them with low-calorie cooking techniques and flavorful low-fat ingredients.

There are cooking techniques that afford the healthy cook many alternatives to sautéing ingredients in the traditional manner. Steaming, boiling, roasting, poaching, and baking are all methods of cooking employed to make sauces with less fat that will dress pasta. Many vegetables, such as cherry tomatoes, eggplants, zucchini, or squash, intensify in flavor when baked, and if you bake them on a parchment sheet, you need no additional fat, such as butter or oil. How you cook the sauce and pasta are just as important as the quantity of each ingredient. In traditional-style cooking, most pasta sauces begin with sautéing sliced or chopped onions and/or garlic in olive oil. Recipes often call for sautéing the onion or garlic until golden or slightly browned. If the first step is sautéing directly in oil, the onion or garlic absorbs more olive oil, which is not necessarily unhealthy for you in the right quantity, but it is caloric. You can start the base for these sauces by making the onion sweat in water first so that it wilts a bit, adding some extra-virgin olive oil once it is softened. This limits the quantity of olive oil without limiting the taste. This same cooking technique can be used with vegetables that are in our sauces. Toward the end of cooking your sauce, you can always use a ladle full of pasta water to make the sauce a bit thinner to better dress the pasta. Water is the perfect calorie-free ingredient.

Al dente pasta has a more lively or viscose interaction with the sauce you serve with it. Pasta dishes often call for a specific shape of pasta; believe it or not, there are 320 recorded shapes of pasta. There is usually a clear reason for pairing a specific pasta shape with a sauce. The marriage between a pasta shape and a sauce shows how well they interplay with each other. A sauce with peas goes well with rigatoni, in which the peas can hide and then burst into your mouth as you take a steaming-hot bite. Oftentimes the pairing of pasta and sauce is a regional preference. Grandmas in Puglia have been using orecchiette with a fava bean sauce for hundreds of years. Some pasta shapes are similar: Orecchiette, shells, and pipette all have small depressions or nooks where sauce with pieces of vegetables could lodge, the pasta literally catching dollops of the sauce. However, self-expression and freedom should not be discounted in the kitchen, so you should also feel free to mix it up.

Although the recipes in this book call mostly for durum wheat pasta, here, too, as with the pasta shapes, you can make choices. Feel free to choose pasta made from different grains. Buckwheat, whole wheat, barley, lentil, flaxseed, amaranth, brown rice, kamut, quinoa, corn, and spelt pasta are all terrific choices, and some are gluten free. Sometimes several grains are milled and mixed together to make pasta. These alternative grain choices create pasta that is high in fiber, each type having a unique flavor and nutritional benefits. The cooking process of these different whole grain pastas requires some special attention, as their texture changes quickly if they are over- or undercooked. This is particularly true with gluten-free pasta, which disintegrates rather easily, lacking the gluten—a protein found in wheat, kamut, spelt, barley, and rye—that holds other pasta together. At some of our restaurants, such as Del Posto and Felidia, the chefs serve delicious gluten-free pasta that you would be hard-pressed to identify as gluten-free. While other establishments find it difficult or cost-prohibitive, more and more places are offering gluten-free alternatives. Gluten-free pasta can be used for almost any recipe in this book in the same measurement as specified in the recipe. The calories may vary slightly depending on the brand of pasta used. When choosing whole grain pasta, the calorie count of the recipes will vary, so be sure to look up the calorie count for the 75 grams per portion of the specific pasta type with which you are cooking. All dry durum wheat pasta (without egg), regardless of its shape, is about 250 calories per 75-gram portion, and all the better major brands of dry pasta have about the same calorie count. Gnocchi or dry pasta that has egg (such as pappardelle) has slightly more calories per serving, as do pasta shapes that are not made from durum wheat flour. But have fun with your pasta, and change it up by choosing different shapes that fit well with the sauce you are cooking. And trying different grain pastas, you might find that you prefer the nutty flavor of whole wheat pasta when paired with a flavorful healthy sauce.

Healthy pasta dishes are not just about good ingredients and savvy cooking techniques, however. Even if you cook healthy pasta recipes, simply eating too big a portion will detract from all the benefits you’ve obtained (that applies to any dish you’re digging in to!). The average box or package of pasta is about 450 grams or 16 ounces, and the proper portion of uncooked pasta is about 75 grams per person, making a box the perfect meal for six people. Pasta is about sating your body and mind. Cooked properly, pasta and its sauces make for a wonderful eating experience that can also be good for you. Meals should not be about negation or depriving yourself, but rather about feeling good and giving your body the proper fuel and nutrients it needs.

The National Pasta Association found that 77 percent of Americans eat pasta at least once a week. That meal should be a joyous and satisfying one—even for your waistline. Our goal is to give you healthy, flavorful options so that you can enjoy eating pasta as much as we do. This book has all the right recipes to do just that. Because who can resist a piping-hot bowl of pasta, and why should you have to?