A healthy, gluten free pasta recipe with a quick and easy, 3 cheese, creamy pumpkin sauce, and bacon! It’s ready in only 15 minutes, and makes a great weeknight meal!
Ya, it’s pumpkin.
I know, Pumpkin was so pre-Thanksgiving. At least, that is what Pinterest tells me. Now you guys are all about the cookies-and-sprinkles-and-red-and-green-and-everything-peppermint-swirl.
And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. In fact, I’m totally jumping on that bandwagon next week for Food Faith Fitness’s first ever 5 days of Christmas goodies! Woo to the hoo!
However, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We have one last stretch of pumpkin covered ground to make it through. We started with pumpkin curry and pumpkin butterscotch cookies. Then, we traveled over to the land of pumpkin french toast and pumpkin muffins. Our second to last trip, was to roasted pumpkin with browned butter ville.
I bring you to our last stop on this crazy train. It’s always good to finish anything in life with a big ol’ bowl of good-for-the-soul carbs right? Yes.
Don’t you love how I always answer my own questions before I let you guys.
Note to self: Put “be more patient” on list of New Years resolutions. Then it’s ok if I don’t actually complete it, since no one ever does. Sneaky sneaky.
Moving on.
It all started with these chocolate peanut butter muffin cakes. Do you guys ever go a little overboard and buy wayyyy too much of an ingredient just in case you run out? Ya, that was me with ricotta cheese. Spoiler #1: After cookie week, you’re getting more ricotta in your life. Or on your screen. Whatever. You ’re getting cheese.
So, into a pan it went. Confession: I’ve never used ricotta in a pan before, only in lasagna-esque things (spoiler #2) So, I kinda sorta stared at it for a while, hoping that it would do a neat trick and turn into something awesome all by itself.
You know what? It just sat there and stared back at me (if cheese can, you know, stare at someone), and just kinda got a little melty. Not so magical.
So, I did what any self-respecting food lover would do, and added another variety of cheese. Cheese 1 + cheese 2 = always the right answer. What could be even better than the right answer? Cheese # 3. Ya, did that too.
That’s when the magic happened. The cheeses did a little dance and got really super duper creammyyyy. Like alfredo sauce on steroids kinda creamy guys. But, without the butter and fat. Ha!
It did need a little somethin’ somethin’ though, and that is where pumpkin saves the day. It gives the sauce this fall feel that you just want to get all up in and cozy with. Plus, the pumpkin pie spice blasts your face with oh-my-gosh-my-kitchen-smells-like-I-live-in-a-big-pumpkin-pie-house. Ya, that’s a good thing.
You know, like Martha Stewart always says.
You know x2, we didn’t even talk about the bacon. Do we need to? It’s bacon. it’s salty and crispy and goes well with cheese (hi creamy healthy carbonara with sweet potato noodles!) And pumpkin. And noodles. And everything you could ever want in life.
Also, the kale. I got so side tracked with cheese that I forgot to tell you that there is other things in this pasta besides that. Kale just adds another level of Fall. May as well go big or go home because, before we know it, it will be Summer. Then you guys will just want pineapple and coconut and colorful drinks with little umbrellas.
Anyways. You guys, before I knew it I had super healthy, super low fat and yum-in-my-face creamy delicious pumpkin cheese sauce. Guess what? It only took 15 freakin’ minutes. This sauce basically makes itself.
If food could, you know, stir itself and all that jazz. You get what I’m saying.
Maybe.
I’m done.
Ingredients
- 2 Tbsp Onion diced (about 1/4 onion)
- 1/2 Tbsp Garlic diced
- 1/2 Tbsp Olive
- 1/4 Cup Low-fat cottage cheese
- 2 Tbsp Low fat or fat free cream cheese
- 1/4 Cup + 2 Tbsp Canned pure pumpkin puree
- 1/3 Cup Unsweetened almond milk
- 1/4 tsp Salt
- 1/4 tsp Pumpkin pie spice
- Pinch of pepper
- 1 1/2 Cups Kale roughly chopped
- 1/4 Cup Reduced fat grated Parmesan cheese
- 2 Slices Turkey bacon
- 4 Oz Brown rice noodles
Instructions
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil and pour over the noodles. Set aside.
- Add the cottage cheese into afood processor and blend until smooth and no lumps remain, just a minute or so. Set aside.
- Dice the onion and garlic and heat 1/2 Tbsp olive oil over medium/high heat in a medium sauce pan.
- Cook the onion and garlic until tender, about 2 minutes.
- Add the cottage cheese, cream cheese, pumpkin puree, almond milk, salt, pumpkin pie spice, pepper, and roughly chopped kale.
- Turn down to medium/low heat and let the mixture simmer until the kale has wilted, about 5 minutes.
- While the sauce simmers, spray a small sauce panwith cooking spray and heat over medium heat.
- Cook the turkey bacon until brown and crispy, just a minute or two per side.
- Crumble the strips of bacon and set aside,
- Stir the Parmesan cheese into the sauce, adding more almond milk if you want it a little thinner.
- Drain the water from the noodles and divide between two plates. Top with sauce, and crumbled bacon,
- Devour!
Recipes written and produced on Food Faith Fitness are for informational purposes only.
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Vicky says
I’ve been browsing Foodgawker looking for pumpkin pasta recipes to make for dinner tonight and came across yours! Love it! Though I’m missing about half of your ingredients I’ve got an idea of what to make! : )
Taylor Kiser says
Thank you so much Vicky!
What a bummer about the ingredients…but I’m sure whatever you made was rockin’! 🙂