
Trade Up with NuVal scores for a more nutritious recipe!
Our NuVal customer manager, and resident blogger Melissa has created a healthy twist on a classic dish with fresh ingredients that score high on the NuVal Scale.
"Grandma’s Casserole” is a baked pasta casserole, complete with tons of vegetables, tomatoes and mozzarella cheese.
How does Grandma’s Casserole stack up on the NuVal scale? If you choose the top-scoring items for each ingredient in the recipe, it does very well.
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The butter is the only item that does not score so well. Land o' Lakes Sweet Cream butter scores a 2.
The score for whole canned tomatoes can vary. Melissa chose one of the highest scoring brands: Price Chopper Whole Tomatoes with No Salt Added with a score of 82.
Tomato sauce is another product that can vary greatly. There are some very high-scoring varieties and some very low-scoring brands. One of the best highest scoring is Pastene’s “The Chateau” Marinara Sauce, which gets a 66 on the NuVal scale.
For the pasta, Melissa chose one of her favorite high-scoring brands: Barilla Plus Elbows. They get an amazing 91.
For the mozzarella cheese, she used Sorrento’s Part-Skim mozzarella with a score of 22.
Other than the cheese and the butter, both of which are under control, portion-wise, this is a very high-scoring, nutritious meal that your whole family will love!
Grandma’s Casserole Ingredients: Serves 8
1 Tbsp butter
1 cup onion, chopped
1 large red pepper, chopped
1 cup celery, chopped
10 ounces ground turkey, 93% lean (just cut the standard 1.25 pound package in half & freeze the leftovers)
1 tsp Kosher salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp garlic powder
2 cups chopped mushrooms
14.5 ounce can whole tomatoes, drained & coarsley chopped
2 cups tomato sauce
2 cups water
1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella
1 3/4 cups uncooked elbow macaroni
Directions:
- In a skillet, saute onion, red pepper and celery in butter
- Add ground turkey and brown, breaking it up with a spoon
- Add mushrooms, salt, pepper, oregano, garlic powder and mushrooms
- Coarsely chop the tomatoes
- Add tomatoes, tomato sauce and water to the pan. Simmer, covered for 20 minutes.
- Spoon enough mixture to cover the bottom of a 9″ X 13″ pan. Layer with uncooked elbows.
- Spoon remaining sauce on top. Sprinkle with cheese
- Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Remove and let stand for 45 minutes
- Serve hot and enjoy!


















