Our best healthy pasta recipes
Updated: Jul. 16, 2019
Crunched for time? Pasta is a versatile staple food that provides a nutritious foundation for a wide range of quick and healthy meals. Here are some of our best healthy pasta recipes
Source: Web exclusive, August 2010
Prince Edward Island Smoked Salmon with Pasta and Simple Lemon Dill Cream Cheese Sauce
Just-cooked pasta is tossed with melting cream cheese to form an incredibly smooth luxurious sauce. The smoked salmon adds extravagance balanced by other familiar flavours: dill, lemon, onion, mustard and capers.
This hearty, flavourful dish is the perfect comfort food for a crisp fall day. The Italian sausage, combined with the savoury blend of garlic, onion and lemon zest is perfectly topped with toasted walnuts.
Sweet Roasted Butternut Squash and Greens over Bow-Tie Pasta
An autumn supper in a bowl, this is a ‘sauce’ that you roast in the oven in about 30 minutes: chunks of sweet squash, roasted herbs, and greens. Add half-and-half, toss with hot pasta and cheese, and you have a great sell to the anti-vegetable contingent.
Dairy-Free Creamy Macaroni Bake
This healthy, creamy macaroni bake is a favourite among kids who crave macaroni and cheese but can’t have dairy. Cooking and pureeing the cauliflower gives the sauce a whiteness that makes it look like the traditional cream sauce.
This simple pasta dish features a variety of mushrooms as its key flavour, with fresh herbs as an accent.
This pasta dish with peas and pancetta is the perfect mix of sweet, salty and superb’and healthy, too.
Pineapple and pear give this fruity pasta salad a sweet accent, while balsamic vinegar adds a delightful piquancy. With lean ham, cheese, fruit and vegetables all adding their own nutrients to balance the pasta, the result is a marvellous dish.
Oven-roasted vegetables, tender and scented with garlic, make a chunky dressing that is great with wide pasta noodles. A sprinkling of crunchy sunflower seeds adds texture as well as additional nutritional benefits to this pasta with roasted vegetables.
Roasted Vegetable and Pasta Bake
A hearty vegetarian dish packed with flavour, this roasted vegetable and pasta bake features butternut squash, asparagus and leeks cooked in a garlicky olive oil, along with chunky pasta shapes and a cheese sauce.
Tempt your family with this delicious heart-healthy smoked trout and pasta salad. It makes an ideal midweek meal served with crusty whole-wheat bread. If you wait until the last minute to add the arugula, it won’t spoil if anyone’s late home.
Pasta and Chicken Salad with Basil
Quick to prepare, this pasta and chicken salad with basil makes an ideal midweek dinner and won’t spoil if someone is late home. Tossing the pasta with lemon juice and white wine not only adds flavour but also means that the quantity of oil can be reduced.
Pasta and Tuna Salad with Zucchini and Sundried Tomato Pesto
The dressing for this simple, colourful pasta and tuna salad has a sweet-sour flavour, which perfectly complements the lightly cooked zucchini, tuna, sundried tomato pesto and pasta. Serve the salad cool, but not chilled, or try it while it is still warm.
Angel Hair Pasta with Basil and Walnut Pesto
This basil and walnut pesto recipe adds the extra health boost of spinach and the peppery surprise of arugula, in true heart-healthy style.
Asian-Style Chicken and Pasta Salad
Pasta bows taste deliciously different when combined with an exotic dressing of fish sauce, fresh red chili and rice vinegar in a moist Asian-style chicken and pasta salad. Fresh crunchy vegetables complete this well-balanced main-course dish.
Grilled Tuna with Zucchini Pasta and Artichoke Sauce
Make good use of excess summer zucchini by creating "pasta", tossing with a flavourful artichoke and tomato sauce and serving alongside simple grilled tuna steaks. If you’re short on time, substitute store-bought olive tapenade.
Asparagus, Grape Tomatoes, Portobello Mushrooms and Sliced Almond with Whole Wheat Rotini
Boost your vegetable and fibre intake with this healthy and delicious asparagus and mushroom pasta dish.
Yes, this dinner is pink! And I’m sure you’ll agree that the flavours of beets, horseradish and tarragon are a natural marriage’but the leek and Swiss chard take this dish to a whole other level.
Penne with Roasted Squash and Sausage
You’ll love this delicious and flavourful dish. When the squash is puréed with extra-virgin olive oil, it has a very creamy consistency’no need to include any fattening cream. The rest of the flavour in this dish comes from the simple combination of roasted garlic, sage, feta cheese and sausage.
Rotelle with Black Beans and Tomatoes
With fibre- and protein-rich black beans and a variety of vegetables, this quick rotelle pasta dish makes an easy weeknight meal. To make it extra healthy, use whole-wheat pasta and cut back on the cheese.
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