Italian food is very popular throughout the world. Whether it is pizza, spaghetti or lasagna, it is hard to find someone who does not like it. The downside to this food though, is that the pasta, crusts and bread that goes with each dish can make it less appealing for a health-conscious diner.
Luckily there is a trend to find ways to replace some or all of flour products with vegetable substitutes.
For example, some pizzas are now doing cauliflower crust. However, the best one’s do not use 100% cauliflower. Instead, they do a mixture of traditional flour and cauliflower in order to make it delicious but cut the calories and carbs.
This same technique can be done in lasagna. If you make the entire dish with a lasagna pasta substitute, you end up with a lasagna flavored vegetable casserole. However, if you use the lasagna pasta on the top and bottom, but use a pasta substitute for the middle layers, the dish feels 100% like lasagna but with only about 35% if the pasta it would have had. Like the combo pizza dough, this maintains a more authentic and enjoyable flavor while making the dish more healthy.
Likewise, pasta made of vegetables have been around for a long time now. But what if you use a small amount of penne pasta with spiralized vegetables making up 75% of the pasta dish? Then you have something that if fulfilling but 75% more healthy than it would have been. And by using some pasta, the meal will still stick to your ribs and help you feel full. It is the best of both worlds.
All to often, we go for an all or nothing substitution, when in fact, we could find a happy medium where the dish is healthier but still feels a little bit like the original dish. Nothing illustrates this more than a well-baked lasagna with the middle layers being a vegetable instead of pasta. And you can experiment with the middle layers and get ideas for healthy recipes here.
The great thing about the lasagna pasta substitution option is that there are so many to choose from. For example, sweet potatoes, zucchini, squash, eggplant, cabbage leaves, kale, peppers and more can all be used. When the whole thing bakes together, you end up with a delicious dish and you will not notice the middle layers unless you go looking for the evidence.