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Before you jump to Baked Rigatoni and Meatballs recipe, you may want to read this short interesting healthy tips about Choosing Fast Food That’s Fine For You.
Just about any article you read about bettering your health or weight loss is going to tell you to ignore the drive through and cook all of your meals instead. There’s some worth to this. Occasionally, though, the last thing you want is to have to prepare a meal from scratch. Sometimes almost all you really want is to go to the drive through and get home as soon as possible. Why shouldn’t you be capable of do this every so often and not have a bunch of guilt about slipping up on your diet regime? This may be possible because an abundance of the popular fast food spots are attempting to make their menus healthy now. Here’s how it’s possible to eat healthfully while you are at a fast food restaurant.
Select a drive through for a restaurant that’s known for catering to people with healthier palates. Arby’s for instance, is void of burgers. You could consume roast beef sandwiches, wraps and salads as a substitute. While Wendy’s has offered hamburgers for decades, they also have plenty of other healthy options like salads, baked potatoes and chili. Most fast food eating places usually do not stoop to the harmful lows seen at McDonalds.
Common logic tells us that one positive way to get healthy and lose weight is to by pass the drive through and to remove fast food restaurants from your thoughts. While this is usually a good idea all you need to do is make a number of good choices and visiting the drive through isn’t anything to worry about–when you do it in moderation. Often what you need most is just to have another person do the cooking. There isn’t any reason to feel guilty about going to the drive through when you make healthy and balanced decisions!
We hope you got insight from reading it, now let’s go back to baked rigatoni and meatballs recipe. You can cook baked rigatoni and meatballs using 19 ingredients and 5 steps. Here is how you achieve that.
The ingredients needed to make Baked Rigatoni and Meatballs:
- Prepare 1 box (16 oz.) rigatoni noodles
- Provide 2 cups ricotta cheese
- You need 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
- Take Sauce:
- Prepare 1 tbsp. olive oil
- Use 3 cloves garlic, minced
- Get 3 cans (8 oz.) each unsalted tomato sauce
- You need 1/4 cup heavy cream
- Get 1 tsp. each dried basil, dried parsley
- You need 1/2 tsp. each salt, granulated sugar, onion powder
- Prepare 1/4 tsp. pepper
- Take Meatballs:
- Prepare 1 lb. ground beef
- Prepare 1/2 cup breadcrumbs
- Provide 1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
- Use 1 large egg
- Prepare 1 tsp. dried parsley
- Take 1/2 tsp. each salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, basil
- Provide 1 tbsp. olive oil
Steps to make Baked Rigatoni and Meatballs:
- First thing to do is get your sauce going. In a large pot, heat the oil over medium heat. Once it's hot, add the garlic. Cook and stir just until it's fragrant… only a minute or two. Then pour in the tomato sauce, cream, sugar and seasonings. Once it starts to simmer, reduce the heat down to low and start preparing the meatballs.
- For the meatballs, place the ground beef, breadcrumbs, cheese, egg and seasonings into a large bowl. Use your hands to mix and incorporate everything together. Then roll the meat mixture into mini meatballs. Heat the oil over medium heat in a large skillet. Once it's hot, add the meatballs to the skillet in batches. Cook and roll them around in the skillet every few minutes until they are browned on all sides. Then remove them from the skillet and stir them gently into the sauce.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 9x13" baking pan and set it aside. Heat a large pot of salted water over high heat. Once it begins to boil, stir in the rigatoni pasta and cook according to package directions, until al dente. Drain and return to the pot. Then stir the ricotta cheese into the hot pasta. Add the sauce and meatballs to the pot and stir it all together. Then turn it out into the greased pan and sprinkle the mozzarella cheese evenly over the top.
- Bake uncovered for 20 minutes, or until heated through and the cheese has a nice golden color. Serve immediately.
- If you only wanted to bake a smaller serving at a time, you could turn out the pasta mixture into two greased 8x8"baking pans instead of the larger 9x13". Top one with cheese and cook it immediately. Let the second one cool down completely, then top with the cheese, wrap it up tightly and place it in the freezer. The night before you're planning on baking it, place it in the fridge to thaw out overnight, then bake it for 30-40 minutes or until 165°F throughout. Each 8x8" pan will serve 4 people.
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