Eating Healthy: Turkey Lasagna

[unforth]

Lasagna is one of my favorite foods, but of course, when you eat it at a restaurant, you know you're getting lots of cheese, lots of unhealthy, sugary tomato sauce, and middling quality beef. It'll be very tasty...but very unhealthy. However, if there's one thing I've learned in all these years of attempting (with mixed success) to lose weight, it's that sooner or later, you're gonna want to eat the things you love. So, rather than wait until I hit a breaking point and then going out and eating the really-bad-for-me lasagna, I thought that for my second cooking experiment (having eaten the first cooking experiment for three nights, and eaten out but healthy last night) I would try making healthy lasagna. I tracked down a recipe that was already reduced calorie, and then I reduced it way more.

Turkey Lasagna
From Cooking Light


Ingredients
1 pound ground turkey breast
Cooking spray
1 1/2 cups water
1 (26-ounce) bottle fat-free Italian pasta sauce (such as Healthy Choice)
3 cups (12 ounces) shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese, divided
2 cups 1% low-fat cottage cheese
1/2 cup (2 ounces) grated fresh Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup egg substitute
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
9 uncooked lasagna noodles

Modifications:
Okay, so I made a bunch of changes. First, the packages of ground turkey were 1.3 lbs, so I just used all of it (I compensated by getting the 97% lean instead of the 93% lean, which cuts almost 50 cal per serving).
I added:
1 minced garlic clove
Italian Seasoning to taste (I used about a tablespoon)
I used Ragu's no sugar added Tomato and Basil Sauce, which is yummier than the Healthy Choice stuff, and slightly healthier (it doesn't have high fructose corn syrup like the Healthy Choice...)
I used far-free mozzarella and fat free ricotta instead of cottage cheese.
Dried parsley
Whole wheat lasagna noodles.


Preparation
Preheat oven to 350°.

Cook the turkey in a large saucepan coated with cooking spray over medium heat until browned, stirring to crumble. Add water and pasta sauce; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes. Remove from heat.

Combine 2 cups mozzarella, cottage cheese, and next 4 ingredients (cottage cheese through pepper) in a bowl.

Spread 1 cup turkey mixture in bottom of a 13 x 9-inch baking dish. Arrange 3 noodles over turkey mixture; top with 1 1/2 cups turkey mixture. Spread half of cheese mixture over turkey mixture. Repeat layers, ending with the remaining turkey mixture.

Cover and bake at 350° for 1 hour. Sprinkle with 1 cup mozzarella cheese, and bake, uncovered, for 10 minutes. Let lasagna stand 10 minutes before serving.

(I added the garlic and the Italian seasonings to the turkey and sauce mixture - otherwise, I basically followed the instructions).

Calories: After all of the modifications I made, I divided in to 6 servings. Each serving has about 420 calories.

All I can say was...it was worth all the work. I definitely want to make some changes next time - in particular, the turkey needed some seasoning of it's own, definitely pepper, and mom and I were talking and we think that I should have followed my initial thoughts on the garlic - next time, I'll probably use two cloves, and I'll saute them in the pan before adding the turkey. Beyond that, a little more sauce would make it a little richer...but none of these minor kvetchings will make me appreciate it's current yumminess any less. :)
My turkey lasagna tastes like victory, and I'm already looking forward to eating it for dinner tomorrow, too. :) And thanks to those who offered me ideas for other sources of recipes and such - I intend to use all of them; I'm already using Sparkrecipes.com in order to help me compute calories and servings. :)

Comments

[milbrcrsan.livejournal.com]

That sounds really yummy! But, I am curious (I'm still pretty much a n00b when it comes to cooking) what is an egg substitute?

[unforth.livejournal.com]

Egg substitute is an egg-derived product with about half the calories and less of the cholesterol and bad stuff. They usually sell it in cartons in the same area as they sell eggs. Egg Beaters (http://www.eggbeaters.com/index.jsp) is the best known name brand; I use a supermarket generic brand, and have for years now, to cook and make omelets and such. I love eggs...I use real eggs too, sometimes...basically, 1/2 cup of egg substitute is the equivalent of two medium to large eggs.

[galiyah.livejournal.com]

Sounds quite tasty. I'm glad you're enjoying the cooking process and the end result. :)

[unforth.livejournal.com]

Thanks, yeah! Do you have any awesome recipes? I'm in the market. ;)

[galiyah.livejournal.com]

Most of my really awesome recipes are for decadent desserts. :D
I'm not sure what sorts of things you like, but I'll see what I can come up with.

[unforth.livejournal.com]

I'll take decadent dessert recipes - I love baking, and one of my favorite things to do is modify dessert recipes into being healthier so that I don't have to give up sweets. :)

[galiyah.livejournal.com]

Ok, how about mint chocolate brownies?

[unforth.livejournal.com]

mmmmmmmmm that sounds good...hard to reduce calories, but worth it... ;)

[squishymeister.livejournal.com]

that sounds tasty! And yay for spark!!!

[unforth.livejournal.com]

It was a lot of work to make but totally worth it! You should give it a try. :)