Ordering a pasta bowl at a restaurant may not seem like as big of an indulgence as getting a dessert, but in fact, many pasta bowls contain far more calories and fat than sweet treats. Nutrition information varies among bowl types, largely due to ingredients and serving sizes, but making a homemade pasta bowl is almost always the healthiest option.
Types
Restaurants, delis, markets and cookbooks serve up a wide variety of pasta bowls. The most common type is large, warm and accompanied by a few vegetables and some meat. Other varieties are served cold, with either an oil-based or a creamy sauce, and may take a backseat to meat, legumes or vegetables. Each type of pasta has very similar nutritional information, so most of the variation arises from other main ingredients and additions in the bowls.
Nutrition
A 2-oz. serving of regular, refined shell pasta has 200 calories, 1 g fat, 40 g carbohydrates and no dietary fiber or protein. The same size serving of multigrain pasta has 190 calories, 2 g fat, 40 g carbohydrates, 5 g dietary fiber and 7 g protein. Thus, all prepared pasta bowls that contain at least one serving of the noodles have a base of 200 calories. Due to its larger protein and fiber content, multigrain is the healthier choice nutritionally.
Ingredients
Sauces add the majority of extra calories in a pasta bowl. Cheese- and cream-based sauces, such as alfredo, can add several hundred calories; pesto sauces will add slightly fewer calories, and tomato-based sauces that are not oil-rich are lowest in calorie count. The addition of vegetables and meat, especially lean or low-fat meat, adds nutritional variety as well as vitamins, minerals and nutrients.
Calories
It's important to realize that most pasta bowls don't limit themselves to a single serving of noodles. They may contain as many as four servings, which can cause the base calorie count to skyrocket to 800. That serving inflation, combined with the lack of satiating protein and fiber in refined white pasta, can put a restaurant pasta bowl at well over 1,000 calories. Smaller portions, such as Betty Crocker's Three Cheese Rotini Pasta Bowl, contain only about 350 calories.
Homemade
The Help Guide website encourages people to cook their own meals to exercise greater control over the nutritional content and calorie counts of what they eat. The site suggests using whole-grain pasta instead of refined varieties, replacing some noodles with extra vegetables and cutting down on oil, butter or cheese in recipes. To tabulate nutritional values for a homemade pasta bowl, use an online nutrition tool and calorie counter to add up total values for all ingredients, and then divide by the number of servings in the bowl.
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