Fall Harvest Healthy Pasta Dish

Pasta is one of the best foods to play around with in the kitchen as there is so many different ways to incorporate it into a meal.

There's nothing that says fall more than warm colors, pasta meals, and easy dishes. This Fall Harvest Pasta meal checks off all of the boxes.

One thing that stands out for me personally with this dish is the incorporation of seafood into the meal. I've recently become aware that my intake of seafood significantly decreases in the falls and winters compared to the summers and springs. Seafood has so many great health benefits and variety is key in a healthy diet.

Therefore, this dish will be even more so on repeat for me in the next few months as I use a Trader Joe's shrimp burger as my source of protein.

This dish has a well balanced macronutrient distribution of protein, fats and carbs to create a hunger crushing combination.

To begin make sure you have all the ingredients on-hand as you'll need:

• Trader Joe's Shrimp Burger

• Whole Grain Pasta/Chickpea Pasta

• Trader Joe's Green Goddess Dressing

• Parmesan Cheese

• Black Olives

• Colorful Veggies.

Start by preheating the oven to 350 degrees to cook your shrimp burger. The burger should initially be cooked on one side for 5 to 8 minutes. Then use a spatula to flip the shrimp burger over for another 5 to 8 minutes.

While you're cooking your shrimp burger, turn the stovetop on to boil your pasta. I cook for myself so I like making one portion of pasta at a time. Therefore, I take out one serving from the box and seal the rest shut.

I highly recommend using whole grain pasta or chickpea pasta for whole grains, additional protein, and fiber. I sometimes will even use 1/2 whole grain and 1/2 chickpea pasta in my dishes to get all the nutrition benefits. My go-to pasta brands are either Barilla or Banza pasta options. However, you can always cater the dish to your personal pantry ingredients. Cook the pasta to al denté and let cool.

You will also need to chop up your veggies into tiny pieces and drain your olives (or use olives to go packs) for the color to the dish. This dish is made by the different colored veggies, so I highly recommend choosing an array of colorful options. I like to use the frozen asparagus from Trader Joe's, baby spinach, orange bell peppers, cherry/grape tomatoes, and cucumbers. Then you'll add in the 2- 4 tbsp of Trader Joe's Green Goddess Dressing with the 2 tsp of parmesan cheese and sift it together in a collender.

You can eat this dish warm or make it cold by running under cold water/ storing in the fridge.

Enjoy your balanced, healthy and delicious meal.