Cottage Cheese Spinach Pasta

Pasta again!!!! Its mine and Yashvi’s favorite cuisine and we can eat in any form at any time of the day. Yes, sometimes we do indulge in pasta dishes for our breakfast. It’s our comfort food and I know it’s the same for many of you. Yet sometimes we control ourselves to keep a check on our healthy eating.

Cottage Cheese Spinach Pasta is quick, simple, healthy and perfect for lunch box recipe ideas. This recipe is quite regular for Yashvi’s lunch box and when I pack this lunch recipe for her the lunch box definitely comes back empty and I can’t stop smiling to myself. Since we all are gearing ourselves for ‘back to school’ regime I thought of sharing this 15 minutes pasta recipe for school lunch box meal idea.

Cottage Cheese Spinach Pasta can be prepared a day ahead and refrigerated for next day’s use. It has good amount of protein, calcium, potassium and many more minerals and vitamins along with the right amount of fiber.

There is a slight difference between American cottage cheese and paneer (Indian cottage cheese). The American cottage cheese and paneer may be quite similar in taste but American cottage cheese is more liquid and greasy as compared to paneer. We drain excess water from paneer and make it firm but American cottage is mushy and extra soft which does not harden even after draining excess water. American Cottage Cheese is a great source of protein and calcium and easy to cook. I used American Cottage Cheese for this recipe because of its taste and texture along with health benefits and its super easy nature of getting cooked.

To enhance the fiber and nutrition content of this recipe I used 100% whole wheat macaroni pasta and it took a few simple steps to cook this scrumptious recipe. When cooking for kids top this dish with some melted butter and for adults we can keep it to olive oil to maintain our healthy weight. 🙂

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Cottage Cheese Spinach Pasta

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 5 minutes

Total Time: 15 minutes

Serves 3

Per Serving 414 calories

Fat 10 g

Carbs 58 g

Protein 23 g

3

Ingredients

• ½ tbsp. olive oil
• 1 tsp dried garlic
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 1 ½ cups baby spinach (finely chopped)
• 1 cup low fat cottage cheese
• ½ cup mozzarella cheese (shredded)
• ¼ cup julienned carrots
• 1/8 tsp salt
• ½ tsp crushed black pepper
• 2 cups whole wheat elbow pasta (cooked)

Instructions

1. Heat oil in a nonstick pan and add garlic and basil.
2. Immediately add spinach and sauté for a minute or till spinach starts to release its water.
3. Add cottage cheese and mozzarella cheese to the pan and mix very well so that the spinach is well coated.
4. Just when the cottage cheese releases its liquid add carrots and mix well.
5. Add salt, pepper and pasta and mix very well.
6. Cook open for 2 minutes and serve warm or at room temperature.

Notes

Use American Cottage Cheese for this recipe.

Any pasta of your choice can be used in this recipe.

For kids just top this recipe with melted butter and for adults keep it as is so as to avoid saturated fats in your diet.

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