High protein | Budget friendly | Ready in 30 min
One trick to get your meals ready faster is to start the stove and start while you start gathering your ingredients and chopping.
Choosing red lentils for faster prep time and creamy finish in the sauce without using any additional cream, which means that the total fat in each portion is reduced.
Calorie: 449kcal | Protein: 18g | Carbs: 75g | Fat: 9g
Ingredients
- 2.5 cups rigatoni
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp plant butter
- 2 tbso nutritional yeast
- 1 clove of garlic, minced
- 1/2 yellow onion, finely chopped
- 2 dried bay leaves
- 400g butternut squash, cubed
- 4 small potatoes, cubed
- 1/3 cup red lentils
- 1 tbsp curry powder
- 1 tbsp cornstarch
- 3 cups water
- Salt and pepper to taste
Recipe Preparation
Heat oil and butter in a crockpot on medium. Add bay leaves, garlic, onion and a pinch of salt, sweat onion without browning.
Add red lentils, potato and butternut squash cubes into pot, stir to combine, add curry powder and a pinch of salt. Keep stirring until everything is well coated with seasonings. Add water and let simmer, uncovered for 5 minutes. Add rigatoni (most rigatoni takes about 12 minutes to cook according to package instruction). Cover and add a pinch of salt once again. Cook for half the recommended cooking time. Stir once during the first half of cooking.
Remove lid, stir to make sure that pasta did not scorch the bottom or pot. By this time, butternut squash should be well cooked. Remove about 2/3 of butternut squash and transfer them carefully to a blender and process until smooth. Continue to cook pasta and return pureed butternut squash back to the pot.
When you have completed the pasta cooking time as instructed. Check the sauce consistency, if it is a bit runny, remove 1/2 cup sauce in a small bowl and dissolve a tbsp cornstarch in the sauce, return cornstarch slurry back to the pot, stir and sauce should be thickened. Serve warm with a drizzle of olive oil and a pinch of chili flakes.
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