Good Eating Monday: Healthier Spaghetti Sauce

 

Sunday's mean fixing a meal for 10 people weekly for me and this past week we had spaghetti, so today's "Good Eating" recipe is making a more nutritious spaghetti sauce.

The key is using lots of vegetables: broccoli, zucchini, mushrooms, onions, peppers, etc.

My spaghetti sauce recipe is for 10, but you can reduce or increase it to quantities you need.

Ingredients:
1 lb. ground chicken or turkey, browned
4  24oz cans Hunts or Del Monte sauce, such as  mushroom or garlic/pepper or a combo. (Not the meat or 4 cheese kinds)

1 small to medium onion of your favorite kind, chopped.
1 container fresh baby portabello mushrooms, sliced thickly.

1 zucchini, sliced into thin strips. ( sliced in discs, then stack and slice pile of discs into strips.)

1 fresh clove of garlic, minced
1 cup frozen Bell pepper strips or 1 fresh Bell of your favorite color, chopped.

2 teaspoons dried Basil (2 Tbsp fresh or to taste)
2 teaspoons dried Oregano (2 Tbsp fresh or to taste)

1/8 cup dried tomatoes, diced--if you can get them. They add something special to favor.

Optional: 1 small can tomato paste for thicker sauce.

Directions:
Saute the ground meat with 1 teaspoon of oregano till brown. Then add veggies--all except dried tomatoes and cook still starting to soften. Add sauce and tomato paste and stir in. Then add garlic, basil, oregano and dried tomatoes. Stir. Bring to boil, then turn down to simmer for 45 min to 1 hr prior to serving. Serve over your favorite pasta.

For just myself and my husband, I usually choose a whole grain or wheat pasta. For the crowd yesterday, I used regular angel hair, because I needed a large box and regular is easier to get in a large box.

There are other seasoning combos you can try. Since I couldn't find a roll of Turkey Sausage, I added dried Poultry Seasoning, Sage & Thyme plus some Spicy Mrs. Dash, which is a red pepper mix, to try and create more of a "sausage flavor."  It actually gave the over-all sauce a nice taste. I didn't use broccoli this time, but if I use it, I generally use frozen florets because they cook quicker. I suppose you could add fresh spinach leaves to sauce as well.

Also you can skip the meat and go meatless with a veggie packed sauce.