How to Make Pasta Dishes More Healthful

• Avoid cream-based sauces: Rather than use sauces such as alfredo sauce and vodka sauce, which include plenty of high-fat cream, choose vegetable- and herb-based sauces, such as tomato sauce and garlic sauce.
• Skim milk: If you do make cream sauces, make them with skim milk rather than cream.
• Low-fat cheese: Use low-fat cheeses, such as cottage cheese and ricotta, whenever possible, and reduce the amount of high-fat cheeses used as a topping on dishes.
• Limit meat content: You don’t have to remove meat entirely from sauces, but whenever you do use meat, cut the quantity in the recipe by half, or use lean poultry, such as turkey, instead.
• Use olive oil: Reduce the saturated fat content of sauces by replacing butter with olive oil.