Fork it Over | Creamy Linguine with Turkey

Sometimes you want to indulge, but only halfway. You want to have fat free vanilla ice cream with the full-of-butter apple pie. You want to wear Prada shoes with H&M bangles. You want to... well, you get the idea. Splurge in one area, save in another. This is a dish where you can do just such a thing! This creamy, tangy (I hate that word but it applies so well to this sauce) pasta sauce combines the indulgence of creamy, cheesy sauce with the health of a lighter-fat base: yogurt. This is a pasta sauce made of yogurt.

The original recipe, found on Big Girls Small Kitchen (have I ever shown you anything from BGSK before? I should use their recipes more. I love them!), didn't include turkey meat but I added it for that extra bit of protein.

Ingredients: - 1/3-1/2 cup whole milk yogurt (Greek yogurt is best) - 1 egg - 1 tablespoon parmesan cheese for garnish (I used... a little more than this.) - 1/2 teaspoon chopped fresh mint - 1/4 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme - 1 scallion, sliced thin - zest from 1/2 lemon - 2 tablespoons hot pasta water (while cooking)

I used slightly higher proportions for all of these measurements and it still turned out well!

Click through to see the rest of this post. Hint: there are more pictures of pasta...

Step one:  Collect all of your ingredients. Chop the herbs and zest the lemon, keeping each measurement in a separate bowl for now.

Step two: If, like me, you've added some meat or protein to your pasta, cook it up now! For me, I cooked the turkey meat over medium heat, chopping it up with my spatula as it cooked. Make sure the meat is entirely cooked in this step, since you won't be cooking the sauce.

Also, start cooking your pasta right now. Set aside 2 tablespoons of your pasta water.

Step three: Mix the egg, yogurt, chopped herbs, scallions, and lemon zest in a large bowl and whisk together until smooth and creamy.

Step four: Add the two tablespoons of hot pasta water to the sauce to temper the egg and beat into the sauce briskly. Drain your pasta when it's done and add the noodles immediately to your sauce mixture. Top with freshly cracked pepper and a few leaves of mint for garnishing.

Serve hot, and enjoy!

It is definitely a different flavor from the typical cream sauce with heavy cream or whole milk as a base, but the lemon and the herbs go well with the tangy flavor of the greek yogurt so even though it is a different dish, it works! The turkey meat was great from a health perspective, but next time I might try this dish on its own without meat, or with chicken - something that has less flavor on its own.

If you try this dish, let me know! I'm interested to see different variations!