Make This Pasta Once, Eat It All Week, And Lose Weight

Cheesy Baked Pasta Meal Prep — 5 Servings

Ingredients

• 400 g dry pasta (penne used; any shape works)
• 1,000 g extra-lean ground beef (5% fat)
• 250 g each of onion, carrot, and celery, finely diced
• 2–3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 700 g passata
• 500 g water
• 25 g stock powder (beef, chicken, or vegetable)
• 15 g dry gelatin
• 100 g shredded mozzarella
• 30 g oil total: 14 g for the vegetables, 14 g for the beef, and 2 g for the garlic
• 20 g concentrated tomato puree
• Salt and freshly cracked black pepper

Optional: About 50 g Parmesan on top. The presenter estimates this adds around 40 calories per serving.

Method

1. Cook the pasta: Bring salted water to a boil, add the pasta, and cook for about 11 minutes, until al dente. Drain and leave it to sit for a few minutes.
2. Prepare the vegetables: Finely dice the onion, carrot, and celery; chop the garlic.
3. Cook the soffritto: Heat 14 g oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add the diced vegetables and a generous pinch of salt. Cook slowly for about 20 minutes, stirring every few minutes, until softened, translucent, and starting to caramelize. Remove them from the pan.
4. Brown the beef: Add another 14 g oil to the pan, then add the beef. Leave it undisturbed for about 1 minute to brown, season with salt and pepper, turn, and brown the other side for another minute. Break it up with a spatula and cook through.
5. Build the sauce: Push the beef aside, add 2 g oil and the garlic, and cook for about 30 seconds. Stir in the concentrated tomato puree and coat the meat, cooking for about 1 minute. Return the vegetables to the pan.
6. Simmer: Mix the passata, water, stock powder, and gelatin together, then add the mixture to the pan and stir well. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes; uncover and simmer for another 10 minutes to reduce and concentrate the sauce. Taste and adjust the salt.
7. Assemble and broil: Preheat the broiler or set the oven to maximum upper heat. Combine the pasta and sauce in a 30 × 20 cm (12 × 8 in) baking dish. Top with mozzarella and, if desired, Parmesan. Broil for about 2 minutes, just until the cheese melts. Some pasta edges will become crispy.
8. Portion and store: Cut into 10 equal portions and pack two portions into each of five containers. Let the pasta stop steaming before closing the containers and refrigerating.

Storage and Reheating

• Refrigerate for up to 5 days or freeze for up to 3 months.
• Thaw overnight in the fridge and microwave for about 90 seconds, or microwave from frozen on the lowest setting for 5–7 minutes, until heated through.

Tips and Variations

• Don’t add all the beef on top of the vegetables in the pan at once; overcrowding prevents good browning. Cook the vegetables first, remove them, then brown the beef.
• Regular ground beef can be used instead of 5% fat beef, but the presenter says it may roughly double the calories.
• Chilled meal-prep containers can help the pasta cool faster. Using a measuring tape for precise portions is optional.
• The presenter estimates the dish provides about 740 calories and 67 g protein per serving.

Presenter/channel: Felu, from Felu – Fit by Cooking. He mentions his cookbook and meal-prep containers sourced from Amazon.