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Robin,
Glad you liked my ideas. Glad to share the recipe I came up with. I’m still tweaking it a bit (mainly to see if I can make it “prettier”), but I really enjoy it.
I call it “Cheesy Zoodle Bake”
The recipe makes 6 servings. They do freeze and reheat well, so I take out what I want and portion the rest out into servings to freeze for later.
I estimate it has around 245 calories per serving. It has 1 protein, a little more than 1.5 veggies, and less than 0.2 healthy fat servings.
Ingredients:
6 zucchinis (spiralized)
1 Tbsp coconut oil
1 Tbsp salt
1 1/2 cups onion (diced small)
4 cloves garlic (minced) (for sauce)
2 cloves garlic (minced) (for cheese mixture)
2 med tomatoes minced or pureed
1/2 c fresh basil (cut up) (for sauce)
1 Tbsp fresh basil (cut up) (for cheese)
1 Tbsp salt
4.5 cups 2% cottage cheese
Preheat oven to 350
Spiralize zucchini, sprinkle with 1 T salt and place in collander over a bowl or sink to drain (this helps to take out excess moisture)
Brown onions and 4 cloves of the garlic in coconut oil in saucepan at medium heat until starting to soften
Add tomatoes and 1/2 c fresh basil, bring to boil, then simmer for 5-6 minutes
While sauce simmers, in a separate bowl, mix cottage cheese with remaining garlic and basil
Squeeze excess moisture out of zoodles. (You can use your hands or a dish towel. This step will help keep the dish from being too watery.)
After sauce has simmered 5-6 minutes, add zoodles to sauce mixture and mix together
Transfer zoodle/sauce mixture to casserole dish
Add in cottage cheese mixture. Mix together lightly to ensure cottage cheese is distributed equally throughout the dish.
Bake 35 minutes
(Note: Cottage cheese doesn’t brown nicely like mozzarella, so you don’t get a pretty bubbly finished product. The end result can be a bit watery because zoodles, unlike pasta, don’t soak up any liquids. I like to stir up my serving before eating it. If you are storing some for later, I recommend letting it cool a little bit before cutting it into servings. It makes it a little easier. Although it doesn’t look pretty like a lasagna, it really satisfied my craving for something a little more savory. Hope you like it if you try it!)