If pasta is always in your pantry, this spinach rotini recipe is going to become a “go-to-recipe” for you. The recipe makes a large batch. This could be big enough for a large group if you double or triple the ingredients. Be sure you have a very large bowl. Trust me on this.
Now consider the flexibility of choices for a moment.
This can be vegetarian or full of meat. You can choose ground beef or ground chicken, chopped pepperoni or chopped ham. Obviously, if you really do want to make it low sodium, you will need to read the labels before you dump things in the bowl “willy-nilly”. But, I love choices so I encourage your creativity…after you have tried it my way the first time!
This recipe serves my family of 6 with leftovers for lunch boxes the next day. When made with quality ingredients, the nutrition verses cost is amazing. It’s pretty cheap to make.
Ingredients
- Spinach- Fresh, 3 lbs (cooked down, 3 cups) or Frozen, a 20 oz. package
- Olive Oil- 2 Tablespoons
- Rotini pasta- 32 ounce package
- Seasoned Spaghetti sauce- 6 cups
- Ground Turkey- 2 lbs, browned and drained
- Eggs- 2,
- Ricotta cheese- 2 cups
- Swiss cheese, shredded- 8 oz. pkg,
Brands used in my version of Spinach Rotini:
Great Value Part Skim Milk Ricotta Cheese (from Walmart) had 60 mg of sodium per 1/4 cup.
Most brands of noodles, such as rotini, on the shelf have no sodium at all, feel free to choose your favorite shape. I like the way the spinach and sauce slide down inside the spirals of the rotini.
Spinach has more naturally occurring sodium than some other vegetables. You can buy frozen chopped spinach but it will have more sodium. If you find a frozen brand with less than 100 mg of sodium, you should feel like you have won the lottery. Fresh spinach, on the other hand, has around 25 grams of sodium in 1 cup. It takes around 10 cups (1 pound) of fresh spinach to cook down to 1 to 1 1/2 cups of cooked spinach. To help with the math, that’s an estimate of 250 mg of sodium in that 10 cups of spinach. Now it’s easy to understand why it doesn’t matter which choice you make. Just read the label for added ingredients. When the sodium is divided out per serving, the added sodium is reasonable.
Ground Turkey, like everything else, has a variation in sodium based on what you buy. Ground white turkey tends to have less sodium than regular ground turkey but most brands have around 300 to 350 mg per 1 pound package. This is not a big deal, either, because when divided by the 8 servings I get from this meal it adds around 40mg of sodium per serving.
Spaghetti sauce can be a problem, but not for you. You are learning how to play the sodium game and you will not be fooled by a can of high sodium sauce! I beg of you not to use big name brands from the italian foods isle at your local grocery store. If you are on a low sodium diet, you can read all the cans on the shelf but will rarely find one that is ok to use. One of my favorite ready-to-go kinds of sauce is Trader Joe’s no salt added Organic Marinara Sauce. Per cup, the sodium is 70mg. When I am in a hurry, this is ok with me.
How do I make my own spaghetti sauce? When I want to “save a buck” or cut down the sodium even more, I use 3 cans of tomato paste and 6 cups of water. I add dashes and pinches of many different Italian spices till it tastes just right to me. It’s the same idea as in my Meatless Italian Spinach and Cheese Ravioli.
I would love to hear what other brands of ready to go sauce you like. I’m always on the lookout for quick options so leave your favorite low-sodium sauce brand in the comments!
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