I’ve mentioned a few times in the last couple years that I’ve been shying away from making too many pasta recipes, as I’ve had to keep a closer eye on my weight (for annoying and boring reasons like injuries and stress).  But I have found a couple recipes that strike a good balance between feeling like delicious pasta goodness and not being just a calorie and carb bomb.

My baked ziti with chicken sausage and summer veggies was one such recipe, but I thought that it could be even healthier without feeling like I’m giving something up.  I usually make it with Trader Joe’s chicken sausage, but that adds quite a lot of calories, so I swapped that for lean ground beef or venison.  You can do it meatless as well, I’ve accidentally done that a few times and while you don’t get nearly the protein, it’s still very satisfying

I also used whole wheat penne or ziti instead of regular pasta, and packed in even more veggies so that my pasta to veggie ratio was about 1:1.  The core vegetables here are zucchini, squash, and tomato, but you can add other veggies if you want (I’ve thrown an orange pepper in before, for instance).

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