Joanna Gaines' Creamy Spaghetti Is Even Better With This Simple Veggie Add-In

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When it comes to dinner, it can sometimes be challenging to choose a meal that's tasty, satisfying, and nutritious. Luckily, there are cooks like home and kitchen guru Joanna Gaines to make meal planning easier. Gaines' cookbook, "Magnolia Table," is chock full of hearty Southern-style recipe inspiration, including her chicken spaghetti, which comes together on the stovetop and then finishes baking in the oven. While her creamy chicken pasta recipe contains sauteed vegetables (two bell peppers and a few ounces of mushrooms), you can easily make the dish even better with one simple veggie add-on: green beans. In her recipe, Gaines calls for serving the pasta with green beans or a side salad. While the pasta is delicious and filling, a side of green beans boosts the nutrition and helps cut the richness of ingredients like pasta, cheese, cream, broth, and pre-cooked chicken. The extra veggies also add some textural and taste contrast to the creamy pasta. 

Preparing a side of green beans doesn't add much cooking time or effort, either. To save time, you can skip trimming the vegetables by buying a bag of pre-washed and pre-cut green beans. Then, steam them simply for a crisp bite that pairs perfectly with the pasta, or bake lemon garlic green beans on a sheet pan for a slight acidic complement. Since Gaines' pasta bake is full of flavor, you can keep the green bean side as simple as you like.

While green beans or a bed of dressed romaine are great for adding more veggies to easy weeknight dinner baked pasta recipes like Gaines' creamy spaghetti, there are countless ways to incorporate more vegetables into the dish. Gaines has a penchant for transforming complex dishes into casseroles, which are excellent for customizing with additional veggie add-ins. For instance, if you don't want to make a separate dish or dirty another pan, you can simply add more mushrooms or peppers to the spaghetti itself. Some people who've made the chicken spaghetti dish have voiced that, while delicious, there could be more mushrooms, anyway. So if you're a mushroom-lover, double the amount called for. 

Embedding more veggies in the creamy pasta sauce also works well if you're looking for more ways to sneak veggies into your kids' (or your own) plate. Since you're already sauteing veggies before mixing in the pasta, cream, and cheeses, and transferring it to a baking dish, it's easy to add in another sauteed veggie like chopped zucchini or broccoli. In the fall, you might experiment with seasonally available ingredients like butternut squash. All in all, a good recipe serves as a guide and inspiration. So, feel free to get creative with tasty dishes like the pasta bake from "Magnolia Table," and boost the veggie content for a healthy, satisfying addition.