Most pasta dishes can be made to add meat or keep it out if you don't want. I made an amazing pasta dish last weekend.
I took 1 pound of shrimp (pre-cooked, peeled, and deveined) and marinated them in italian dressing for 15-20 minutes.
I then cooked some pasta. You can use any noodles you want, but I prefer angel hair.
While the pasta was cooking, I pre-heated a skillet with some pam cooking spray. You can use vegetable or olive oil, but pam has no calories so I use it.
While the skillet was heating, I mixed up a sauce for the pasta. Just mix the following ingredients in a small bowl.
1/4 cup of chicken broth
2 tablespoons of cilantro. Fresh is good, but I have used the dry and it tastes just fine
2 tablespoons chunky peanut butter
1 tablespoon of honey
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon of crushed red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon of sesame seeds (if you want)
Mix all of those up well in a small bowl. The peanut butter is stubborn at first, but mixes well if you stay after it.
When the skillet is heated, I add a half of a chopped onion, a chopped bell pepper and some sliced mushrooms to the skillet. I saute them until they are crisp-tender
At that point, I drain the shrimp from the marinade and add the shrimp to the skillet with the vegetables. I cook for 2-3 minutes, just long enough to the let the shrimp heat through
When the pasta is cooked, I drain it and put it in a large bowl. I add the shrimp/veggie mix and the peantubutter sauce to the pasta and toss it all together.
The sauce isn't a lot, so the last time I cooked this, I doubled up the sauce recipe. Another twist to the recipe that I have tried and liked was to add a little minced garlic to the sauce.
You can also do this recipe without the shrimp. You can also cut up chicken, marinate it in italian dressing, and bake it or or saute it in a skillet before hand to use in the recipe.
It actually tastes darn good. I had leftovers for lunch twice this past week at work.
In fact, I might have to make this again tonight. Typing this up just made me hungry.
Coach