September is National Family Meals month. Your West Lakes Hy-Vee Dietitians encourage you
to eat one more family meal together each week. Below shows a step-by-step
method in creating a healthy, tasty and fun recipe. The whole family can be
involved in making these Whole-Grain Lasagna Cups!
Gather the following ingredients:
Reduced-fat mozzarella cheese, whole-grain lasagna noodles, dried parsley,
dried basil, lean ground turkey, low-fat cottage cheese, pasta sauce or
marinara sauce.
|
Traditional
lasagna ingredient
|
Ingredient
to swap
|
Health
benefits of swap
|
|
White flour lasagna noodles
|
Whole-grain lasagna noodles
|
Increase in fiber
|
|
Whole milk shredded cheese
|
2% reduced-fat shredded cheese
|
Decrease in calories and saturated fat grams
|
|
Ground beef
|
Ground turkey
|
Decrease in calories and saturated fat grams
|
|
Part-skim ricotta cheese
|
Low-fat 1% cottage cheese
|
Decrease in calories, saturated fat grams, increase in protein
|
|
Traditional pasta sauce
|
Prego Light Smart pasta sauce
|
Decrease in calories and grams of added sugar
|
Cook entire box of lasagna noodles according to package
directions. Drain noodles. Spread noodles out on a paper towel to dry and
cool.
While noodles are
cooling, brown ground turkey in a skillet with ½ tablespoon basil and ½ tablespoon
parsley. Drain turkey.
Stir in 2 cups pasta
sauce. Cover and simmer for about 10 minutes. Set aside.
Place a cooled
lasagna noodle on a cutting board. Find a household item that is similar in
size to the bottom of a muffin cup, such as a wine glass. Cut the cooled
lasagna noodles into circles. You’ll use about 3 whole lasagna noodles for this
step. Discard scraps.
Coat
a standard 12-cup muffin tin with olive oil non-stick cooking spray. Place one cut-out lasagna noodle circle in
the bottom of each muffin cup.
Place cooled lasagna noodles on cutting board. Using a
knife or the edge of a spatula, cut the noodle in half lengthwise. You’ll use 6 lasagna noodles for this
step.
Wrap each noodle half around the inside of a muffin cup to
form the sides of the lasagna cups.
Spoon about 2
tablespoons of turkey mixture into each noodle cup.
In a small bowl, combine
1 cup low-fat cottage cheese, ½ cup reduced-fat mozzarella cheese and ½
tablespoon ground black pepper.
Place
cottage cheese mixture on top of turkey mixture.
Top cottage cheese
layer with another layer of turkey mixture, followed by shredded mozzarella
cheese.
Bake at 350 degrees
for 15 to 20 minutes.
Serve with additional
pasta sauce.
It’s important to make your family meals balanced to ensure
everyone is receiving proper nutrition from each food group. Use MyPlate as a guide to help visualize what
a healthy plate looks like. These whole-grain
lasagna cups primarily represent the grains and protein food groups. The pasta sauce is also a non-starchy
vegetable source and the cottage cheese is a calcium-rich dairy source. To balance this plate furthermore, pair with
a leafy green strawberry salad along with an 8 oz. glass of skim milk, and
you’ve got a complete meal!
Take the Hy-Vee Family Meals challenge today! Simply post a photo to your social media of
your family enjoying a meal together and use the hashtag #hyveefamilymeals. Hy-Vee will donate $1 per post to Meals for
the Heartland, up to $100,000. Sharing
or retweeting the posts below will also count toward the $1 donation.
-Dietitian Natalie
