2. Make Vegetables the Star of Your Bowl
To make your pasta bowl more diabetes-friendly, add color from the produce aisle.
Centering your pasta dish around nonstarchy, naturally low-calorie vegetables can easily increase the amount of vitamins and minerals on your plate, says Smithson.
“Nonstarchy vegetables are [also] high in fiber and have few carbohydrates, which means [a lesser] effect on blood sugar,” says Anderson-Haynes. She recommends filling roughly half of your plate or bowl with options like kale, collard greens, arugula, broccoli, asparagus, cucumber, spinach, carrots, or mushrooms.
3. Swap Creamy Sauce for an Oil- or Tomato-Based Sauce
Like other “white” foods worth swapping out of your diet (white bread, white rice, and yes, white pasta), ditch white sauce when preparing a more diabetes-friendly meal.
Smithson suggests choosing sauces with an olive oil and fresh garlic base, both of which offer potential heart-health benefits.
Just remember that while olive oil provides healthy fats, it is still high in calories (124 calories per tablespoon), so practice portion control. Use a quarter-cup of olive oil and four or five garlic cloves per pound of cooked pasta, says Smithson. Portion the sauce equally among each serving of pasta (generally one-half cup of cooked noodles).
Red pasta sauces like marinara or classic tomato are other great options, “as they are lower in overall fat and calories” than cream-based sauces, says Jana Mowrer, RDN, CDCES, a nutritionist in private practice based in Fresno, California. Just stick to a one-half- to three-quarter-cup serving size, she adds.
When buying a packaged red sauce, choose a jar that contains no added sugar and, ideally, no more than 10 grams (g) of carbohydrates and 400 milligrams (mg) of sodium per half-cup serving, says Mowrer.
4. Experiment With Vegetable Noodles
If you can’t handle wheat, or you’d like to slash the carbohydrate content of your pasta dish even more, try crafting noodles out of vegetables. If you don’t have a spiralizer or mandoline — two kitchen tools used to spiralize produce by hand — you can use a vegetable peeler. Simply place the peeled vegetable strips in boiling water for 20 seconds, and then transfer the “noodles” into a bowl of ice, says Smithson. “For ease of preparation, it’s fine to purchase spiralized vegetable noodles,” she adds.
As long as they’re not made from squash or sweet potatoes, which are starchy, spirals made from vegetables will be your lowest-carbohydrate option, says Smithson. Plus, vegetable noodles are typically lower in calories and rich in vitamins and minerals.
One cup of cooked zucchini spirals, for example, contains only 27 calories and 5 g of carbohydrates, whereas 1 cup of cooked whole-grain spaghetti noodles contains 165 calories and 35 g of carbohydrates. That same portion of zucchini also offers 23 mg of vitamin C and 476 mg of potassium, making it an excellent source of both nutrients.
Bell peppers, broccoli, carrots, and beets make for other good low-carb vegetable noodle options.
5. Practice Portion Control
Being mindful about portion sizes is key to enjoying pasta when you’re managing type 2 diabetes. “The goal is to keep blood sugar levels from spiking too high,” says Mowrer.
Food portions, especially at restaurants, are much larger today than they were 20 years ago. With those expanding portion sizes come more carbohydrates and calories.
On the other hand, providing smaller portion sizes can result in reduced calorie intake and lower body weight over time.
“It’s important when consuming pasta to include other food groups and practice portion control, aiming for about one-quarter [carbohydrates], one-half [vegetables], and one-quarter lean protein on your plate per meal,” says Mowrer. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends using a 9-inch dish (about the length of a business envelope) to take the guesswork out of portion control.
The exact number of carbohydrates to aim for depends on factors such as your age, gender, and activity level, as well as any medications you’re taking, says Mowrer. Generally, she suggests people with diabetes aim for 30 to 60 g of carbohydrates per meal. The American Diabetes Association recommends working with a registered dietitian nutritionist or a certified diabetes care and education specialist to determine your carbohydrate goal.
6. Feature a Lean Protein
By combining a protein source with a carb-heavy dish like pasta, you can avoid a rapid blood sugar spike (and subsequent crash), because protein is slower to digest than carbohydrates, says Smithson. Plus, adding protein makes your pasta more satisfying, which may prevent you from overloading your plate with carbohydrates, says Anderson-Haynes.
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