Healthy Twists

GIVEAWAY at the end of this post! Whoo hoo.

Have I talked about Mitch’s homemade pasta sauce? Probably. I renamed it “Italian chili” because we never eat pasta around these parts (which is not my preference but his, FYI) so calling it spaghetti sauce seemed just wrong. But anyway. It’s really good and packed with goodness like lean turkey and tons of vegetables…and chipotles and olive oil, which makes it delicious but also tends to give me some less-than-fun heartburn. It’s also semi time-consuming for him, so it’s nice to have jarred sauce on hand for pasta sauce emergency.

Recently, I was sent some coupons to try Francesco Rinaldi pasta sauce, including their new “To Be Healthy” line that is made without added sugar and with Omega-3s. It’s also lower in sodium, so…score for that! But since we don’t do just regular pasta in my house, Mitch decided to make one of his signature dishes to try out the sauce: Chicken Parmigiana. We’ve had this before served with bread or pasta, but this time we went with grilled vegetables. I protested that decision at first, but eventually agreed this is totally hearty enough without the additional starch.

For full disclosure, not only did I get the sauce for free to review, but my sorority sister Jocelyn’s family owns (or manages? not totally sure) the company.

You read that right. I was in a sorority. And now we move on…

Honestly, since I’m spoiled by the homemade sauce, I wasn’t expecting a lot from Francesco Rinaldi, especially when I saw how inexpensive it was. But I was pleasantly surprised by the ingredient list and the nutrition facts. All recognizable ingredients, and I really liked how the “To Be Healthy” sauce was sugar-free. The other kind does have sugar, but it can’t be a lot because it’s only 80 calories per serving, which isn’t bad at all.

I don’t have a Chicken Parm recipe for you, but it’s pretty standard. He breads the chicken with a panko/breadcrumb mixture, then pan-fries the patties until browned. Then, he pours the sauce and the boatload of cheese over the top and bakes until everything is cooked through. Since I’m not a fan of the queso, he left the cheese off my portion. I know it makes him sad that he has to do that, but it looks like he was consoled by the fact that he got 25% more cheese on his portions.

We had our meal with a side of grilled vegetables. The orange pepper was from my CSA bounty this week and it was SO good. And yeah, a little cheese got on my chicken. And I didn’t die. Yet.

I’d definitely purchase Rinaldi To Be Healthy sauce again. The price was right, the flavors were good, and the nutritionals were great, in my opinion. I have to find someone creative to do with the jar of the “Chunky Garden” flavor that we didn’t use this time. That’s where you come in!

GIVEAWAY!

To win two free jars of Rinaldi pasta sauce:

1. Leave a comment on this post and tell me your favorite way to enjoy jarred pasta sauce.
2. 1 extra entries for posting about this giveaway on your blog (leave a separate comment)
3. 1 extra entry for Tweeting: “I want to win Rinaldi pasta sauce on the @HealthyTwists blog” (or something to that effect) with a link to this post.

Good luck! And enjoy the rest of your weekend, ok? It’s almost SEPTEMBER…how nuts is that??

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