Healthy Penne Alla Vodka
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Healthy Penne Alla Vodka is easy to make and high protein (20g per serving!) You’d never know this creamy sauce has blended cottage cheese.
Sunday pasta dinners are a staple in our Italian family. We usually have homemade beef meatballs and sausage slowly simmered in a tomato sauce, but we like to switch things up every now and again and this healthy penne alla vodka is a new recipe we love.
This healthier penne vodka recipe is easily made in 30 minutes with less than 10 ingredients and is secretly high in protein.
It sounds odd, but we blended cottage cheese and tomatoes together for a silky smooth cheesy pasta sauce without heavy cream! You can even add a handful of spinach to hide some nutrition too!
We love to add baked chicken cutlets, pan seared shrimp, or crumbled sausage to this pasta dish as well, which provides even more protein and flavor.
liz’s top tips for healthy penne alla vodka
- Skip the alcohol Swap the vodka for 1/2 teaspoon of white wine vinegar, this gives your sauce the same balance of acidity and sweetness once the vinegar cooks off and combines with the other ingredients.
- Always reserve a bit of your starchy pasta water when making sauces. The combination of starchy pasta water and fats like butter and olive oil allows you to create a smooth and creamy sauce as they meld together.
Ingredients:
Substitutions
Crushed Tomatoes: You can also use canned tomatoes, jarred tomato sauce, or whole canned tomatoes. Since we are blending this sauce, it will be smooth regardless. Make sure to use tomatoes, not pasta sauce.
Cottage Cheese: We like to use the 4% milk fat cottage cheese, but feel free to use any cottage cheese that is available to you. Try to avoid ones with gums/stabilizers in the ingredients list.
Pasta: We used organic semolina pasta in this recipe but you can use whole wheat pasta or gluten free pasta. Please note that gluten free pasta may not create the same effect as starchy pasta water, so the sauce could loosen a little. You can use this sauce on any type of pasta shape you like! We love these homemade Ricotta Cavatelli.
Olive Oil: Extra virgin olive oil is ideal for this recipe, but you could substitute it for avocado oil or grass fed butter.
Vodka: If you want to avoid the alcohol in this recipe, you can swap vodka with a 1/2 teaspoon of white wine vinegar to give the dish a nice balance of acidity and sweetness.
Herbs and Spices: Dried basil is good, but the flavor of fresh basil will absolutely bring this recipe some incredible aromatic flavor. You can sub the dried basil for 1/4 cup fresh basil leaves. Add some crushed red pepper or chili oil for a little kick!
How to Make Healthy Penne Alla Vodka
- Blend tomatoes and cottage cheese on high until smooth.
- Set aside while you cook your pasta until al dente (follow the directions on the box). Important: Reserve ¼ cup of pasta water before draining
- Sauté onions and garlic in olive oil until softened. Add vodka and cook for 5 minutes over medium high heat. Stir in tomato mixture and spices and simmer.
- Once cooked, toss your cooked pasta in the sauce.
- Remove from the heat and stir in parmesan cheese and reserved pasta water until pasta is fully coated. Serve with cooked chicken, sausage, or shrimp for added protein.
What to Serve with this Recipe:
A loaf of crusty bread, some baked chicken cutlets, or a delicious side salad would be amazing additions to serve with this recipe. Here are a few of our favorites: Spinach Salad, Baked Chicken Breasts, Arugula Salad. You could also pair it with veggies like mushrooms or Brussels sprouts.
Storage
Storing: This healthy vodka sauce will last in the refrigerator for up to 4 days in an airtight container.
Freezing: I don’t recommend freezing pasta, when it’s reheated after freezing it will get soggy and mushy. We haven’t tried freezing this sauce, but I wouldn’t recommend it. I think it will separate when you reheat it from frozen.
If you need more freezer friendly recipes check out our Fill Your Freezer Ebook with 22 easy freezer meals!
Reheating: You can reheat this recipe in the microwave or on the stove.
Other healthy pasta recipes:
Check out these other Healthy Pasta recipes! Click here to grab our free healthy 30 minute dinners cookbook.
Healthy Penne Alla Vodka
Ingredients
- 28 oz canned crushed tomatoes
- 1 cup cottage cheese we recommend 4% milkfat
- 1 pound dry penne pasta you can also use rigatoni, ziti, cavatelli, etc
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- ½ cup diced onion
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic about 3 cloves
- 2 tablespoons vodka or ½ teaspoon white wine vinegar
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- ⅛ teaspoon black pepper
- ½ teaspoon dried basil leaves or ¼ cup of fresh chopped basil
- ½ cup grated parmesan cheese
- ¼ cup pasta water
Instructions
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil for your penne pasta.
- While the water is coming to a boil, blend tomatoes and cottage cheese on high for 30 seconds or until smooth. This should result in a smooth, creamy pink sauce. Set aside.
- Add olive oil to a saute pan and preheat over medium heat for about 3 minutes.
- While the pan is heating up, finely chop onions and garlic.
- Add the onions and garlic to the pan and saute on medium low heat for 3-5 minutes or until softened and translucent.
- Add 2 tablespoons of vodka to the onions and garlic and cook down until the smell of alcohol has dissipated, about 5 minutes.
- Add your tomato/cheese mixture, salt, pepper, and basil to the pot. Stir together and simmer on medium heat.
- While the sauce is simmering, add your penne pasta to the boiling water and cook until al dente, review the instructions on the back of your box of pasta.
- Important: While pasta cooks, reserve ¼ cup of pasta water before draining
- Once cooked, drain your pasta and add to the sauce.
- Remove the pan of sauce from the heat. Add parmesan cheese and reserved pasta water, stirring together until a smooth sauce forms and your pasta is coated.
- You can serve with cooked chicken, sausage, or shrimp for added protein.
Video
Thank you! This is a really delicious recipe! High marks from our whole family of tough critics. I made it exactly as the recipe calls for but added chopped fresh spinach. Yum! This is a keeper.
I used this recipe to meal prep last week and it was a hit in my book ! I’m usually wary of heavy sauces but the way this was a perfect amount for my pasta… chefs kiss 🤌🏼😘. I did add the spinach to the sauce as well. I would just suggest to use a bigger blender and not a nutribullet because I had to blend it in batches.
Thanks for this recipe guys ! 🫶🏼
Another delicious recipe! Easy to make and enjoyed by my family.
Made this for dinner the other night. We loved it, will definitely be adding it into our rotation
Absolute family favorite!! This is in our rotation! It’s so easy, simple ingredients and a much healthier take on normal spaghetti and sauce. I love the extra protein from the ingredients used. My kids many times won’t eat actual meat, so it makes me feel good serving this knowing they still get some protein in, even without meat!
Hi Liz,
For whatever reason cottage cheese makes me nervous. Do you think I could do 1/2 cup cottage cheese & 1/2 cup ricotta?
Thanks!
Kris
What about it makes you nervous? I don’t know how the ricotta would work, it’s definitely a different texture and can be grittier so I’m not sure how that would work, I’m sorry!
This was so easy to make and so so sooo good. Why would I ever buy premade sauce again?! I forgot to reserve pasta water and thankfully it turned out fine. I also didn’t use vodka and realized I had rice vinegar instead of white wine vinegar and it tasted fine. I can’t wait to try it with the vodka and not missing the pasta water step!
I’m so happy you liked it!!
This was spectacular! And a great way to add extra protein. When I can make a meal that all 4 of my kids will eat, it’s a complete win! We added some grilled chicken and mushrooms on top. This will definitely be added to our dinner rotation! The noodle and sauce ratio was perfect. Also, good quality premade sauce is so expensive. This being a can of crushed tomatoes and cottage cheese is actually much cheaper to make. Love this recipe.
This was delicious! I love vodka sauce and enjoyed being able to have a healthier version that was still full of flavor. Best part was it was so easy to make! Dinner came together rather quickly. While I know pasta is pasta I love rigatoni so made it with that and paired it with the baked chicken cutlets.
Makes us so happy to hear, thank you!