Low-Fat, Low-Calorie Crab Fettuccini Alfredo

So, I have this friend. He likes good food and knows I do as well. He also knows that I enjoy cooking and I'm reasonably skilled at it. So, sometimes he sends me a picture of a food that looks good and is like "Can we make this?" and usually I can and do.

This one was a picture of crab fettuccini Alfredo. At least this one had a list of ingredients and measurements, so I had a starting point. And I could utilize my knowledge of cooking to fill in the gaps.

I had just started thinking about how to make recipes healthier, so I decided to try it out with this recipe. Now, Italians would likely be furious at this recipe, but I'm not trying to be authentic Italian. I'm from Maryland, so I use jumbo lump crab, and I usually add some Old Bay seasoning into this (even though I didn't put it in the recipe), because Old Bay and crab go together.

The first thing I did with this recipe was to use fresh pasta instead of dried. When you make pasta fresh, you can control the amount of egg yolks and the amount of oil used, which is the primary source of fat in the pasta. I also changed the thickener and the dairy used to reduce fat and calories further. In many traditional recipes that require thickening, a roux is used, which is a mixture of equal parts fat and flour. However, you can also thicken with cornstarch, which eliminates the need for extra fat. Eliminating the flour also reduces some of the carbohydrates. If you use a gluten-free pasta, the recipe will be gluten-free due to the use of cornstarch instead of flour to thicken.

Don't worry, though. In my quest to cut the amount of fat, I didn't compromise on the cheese. The ingredients on the screenshot included parmesan, and there is no replacing it, so I don't try, and I compromise in other areas. You'll be surprised that even with the addition of parmesan cheese to the recipe, the resulting modified dish is only 329 calories and 8 grams of fat per serving.

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Try it and let me know what you think!