I love Italian food, all of my favorite dishes are some form of Italian food… spaghetti, meatballs, lasagna, ravioli, manicotti, fettuccine, pizza, etc. However, most recently I have come to love bolognese sauce. Before I thought I wouldn’t like bolognese because it had veggies in it. Now I really love it because it DOES have veggies in it. I am also trying to make old favorites into healthier versions, don’t get me wrong I love noodles, I practically lived on noodles and pasta sauce when I was in college. Even when my husband was gone all the time since it was cheap, super easy to whip up, and makes good leftovers to take to work the next day.
Now, here I am, married with a child and still loving noodles but my waist line says, “hey lady, knock off the refined carbohydrates… we don’t want you to have to get new pants”. Someone told me that your metabolism slows down when you hit thirty, and man were they right. I refuse to give up all of my favorite foods so instead I am making them healthier. I really do love zoodles, but I also wanted to experiment with other veggie noodles as well, so I thought for this dish I would try carrots. When I make my bolognese sauce and use another type of veggie as the noodle, I add carrots to the sauce but since I am using carrots as the noodle, I leave them out. Also, this is an easy meal to cheat the noodles with, carrots need to be pretty big to spiralize them so if my local Trader Joe’s has them in stock, I buy their frozen carrot spirals.
This is one of my favorite dishes to make because it is loaded with veggies, so flavorful, and a dish that my husband will eat without asking for regular pasta (that’s a total win for me).
Ingredients:
~1lb. ground turkey
~ 2 tbsp olive oil for meat pan + 1tbsp for carrot pan
~2 ribs of celery, chopped
~1/4 cup of onion, chopped
~ 1 cup bell pepper, chopped (I prefer orange)
~ 2 cloves of garlic, minced
~1 jar of your favorite sauce (I use Rao’s because it has very clean ingredients and tastes better than any homemade sauce I have ever had)
~ Either a box of your favorite carrot spirals or sprialize 3-4 medium sized carrots.
Directions:
1.) Heat the olive oil in a medium skillet on medium to high heat, adding in the celery, onion, pepper, and garlic. Cook until the items become soft about 5 minutes.
