I love pasta, but very rarely consume it anymore since it is usually nothing more than a source of simple carbs that I can eat a ton of, and then be craving more an hour later. Most pasta contains little to no fiber, vitamins or minerals and are simply a source of empty calories. I want my calories to count for something when I consume them.

Yesterday, my sweet wife was lamenting the fact we never eat pasta anymore, and asked if having a protein pasta would be okay. Most protein pastas I have ever eaten were not very good in my opinion, but I thought I would appease her. As I was walking down the grocery store aisle towards where all the pastas are kept, the Muir Glen Pasta Sauce caught my eye with the words on the front label:

“NO SUGAR ADDED”.

Italian Herb Pasta Sauce sounded delicious and sure enough, when looking at the nutritional  and ingredient labels, there was no added sugars! Bingo, I found what I hoped would be the perfect sauce for my dietary requirements of zero added sugars.

I started our dinner shortly after getting home from the store. I put on some water to boil for the pasta, and then browned some lean ground beef to add to the sauce.

To be honest, this sauce would be perfectly fine by itself and without the ground beef.

Once the ground beef had browned good, I drained off the grease and then rinsed off any that was remaining.  I then returned the ground beef to my sauce pan and added the sauce which to my delight had nice chunks of tomato in it.

Loraine loves chunky sauce too.

Muir Glen has a perfect blend of their herbs and spices in this sauce which gives it a wonderful flavor without them over riding the flavor of the tomatoes.

You can taste each fresh ingredient, and I love that this is not in way shape or form a sweet sauce as many commercially available sauces can be. This sauce is a perfect compliment to any Italian style meal, and I believe the next time I bake our David’s Way Low Carb Pizza Casserole, I might use this sauce on it.

As you can see above, the nutritional value is pretty good at 80 calories per serving. Half of those calories coming from heart healthy olive oil. The sodium and carbohydrate totals are pretty low, and the sauce provides 2 grams of dietary fiber. The 4 grams of sugar are natural sugars that are found within the tomatoes and onions. This sauce is well worth the approximate $4.00 I spent.

This spaghetti surprised me, it cooked up nicely and was actually a very close match to other non-protein spaghetti’s in flavor and texture. I could not tell much of any distinguishable difference with this product as I have with other “protein” pastas. It was a perfect pairing with the Muir Glen sauce. Loraine was ecstatic to actually have a healthy choice of pasta and sauce that she could actually enjoy too.

The benefits are all good!

At 190 calories per 2 ounce dry serving, this is pretty good and was actually filling as opposed to how this same size serving of regular spaghetti would only leave me wanting more. What made this pasta satiating is the fact it provides 10 grams of protein and 4 grams of dietary fiber per serving. I have to say, this pasta and sauce combination was very satisfying and I would recommend it to anyone.

This sauce and pasta meet my personal requirement of zero added sugars, good source of protein and fiber and tastes decadently good while not being a blood sugar bomb once you have finished eating it.