Whole Wheat Spaghetti with Broccoli and Spinach Pesto

For Valentine’s Day my hubby wanted a pasta dish. Since I we don’t have pasta as often as we used to I obliged and made him a whole wheat pasta with healthy pesto. I used walnuts in place of pine nuts for the omega 3 fatty acids. I omitted the olive oil all together and used a little nutritional yeast to give the sauce a little cheesy umami in the background. Lemon was added to up the flavor in this low fat dish.

Whole Wheat Spaghetti with Broccoli and Spinach Pesto

Serves 8

Ingredients:

1 pound whole wheat spaghetti, cooked until al dente
4 cups broccoli, lightly steamed
4 cups baby spinach, raw
1 lemon, zested and juiced
2 cloves garlic, smashed and peeled
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
¼ cup walnuts
Water necessary to process
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Combine the broccoli, spinach, lemon zest and juice, garlic, nutritional yeast, and walnuts in your processor and process until smooth. Add as much water as is necessary to create a paste/sauce. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Toss the hot pasta and pesto together until combined. If the pesto is too thick adds some of the pasta cooking water and continue to toss until the pesto loosens enough to evenly coat the pasta.

I served this with sun-dried tomato marinara and little sprinkle of my homemade vegan parmesan.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 253.69
Calories From Fat (12%) - 29.53

Total Fat - 3.47g
Saturated Fat - 0.42g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 36.34mg
Potassium - 401.4mg
Total Carbohydrates - 48.55g
Fiber - 3.04g
Sugar - 1.43g
Protein - 11.6g

Comments:

Most pesto recipes are loaded with fat from the olive oil, nuts and cheese. This pesto is crazy healthy compared to the traditional versions. If you use oil when cooking you may want to either increase the walnuts or add a little extra virgin olive oil. We found this to be great as it was.

Each serving of this pasta contained approximately 2,200IU of vitamin A, 50mg of vitamin C, 90mg of calcium, 120mg of folate, 135mcg of vitamin K, 210mg of phosphorus, 115mg of magnesium, and 44mcg of selenium. Not too bad for 2 ounce serving of pasta with a little pesto.

Unrelated Note:

I have a crazy dish planned for tonight. It is one of those things that could go either way. Hopefully it will be worth sharing. Even if it is bust I will let you know what I did since it may spark an idea for one of you. I will be back later tonight with the recipe.

Their highnesses the felines were all well behaved today for their grooming session. Since they have long hair they don’t enjoy being brushed. But today no one was ill tempered and tried to bite or scratch. Luck must have been with me today.

I came across this recipe this morning on the Vegetarian Times site.  Since I am going to try it I thought some of you may be interested so here is the link to a Dr. Fuhrman green smoothie.