7 Nutritious Pasta Tips for People With Type 2 Diabetes

If you’re living with type 2 diabetes, you may have heard that pasta is something you need to avoid. But if you love this comfort food and are willing to make a few tweaks, you may not need to say goodbye to this feel-good fare.

Though it’s higher in carbohydrates than some other foods, pasta can fit into a balanced meal plan for someone with diabetes, says Toby Smithson, RDN, CDCES, a senior manager of nutrition and wellness for the American Diabetes Association who's based in South Carolina. Watch your portion sizes and prepare this dish mindfully to help maintain healthy blood sugar and weight for your body size.

1. Choose Whole-Grain (or Bean) Pasta

One easy way to make your pasta dish more nutritious is to swap out traditional noodles for a higher-fiber variety. “Whole-grain pasta can be a great option because it offers more fiber, which can help blunt blood sugar spikes,” says Smithson.

While semolina can be a nutritious flour — especially when enriched with vitamins and minerals — whole-grain pasta has a slight edge.

2. Make Vegetables the Star of Your Bowl

To make your pasta bowl more diabetes-friendly, add color from the produce aisle.

You can base your pasta dish on nonstarchy, naturally low calorie vegetables to easily increase the amount of vitamins and minerals on your plate, says Smithson.

“Nonstarchy vegetables are [also] high in fiber and have few carbohydrates, which means [a lesser] effect on blood sugar,” says Anderson-Haynes. She recommends filling roughly half your plate or bowl with options like kale, collard greens, arugula, broccoli, asparagus, cucumber, spinach, carrots, or mushrooms.

3. Swap Creamy Sauce for an Oil- or Tomato-Based Sauce

Just as switching from enriched to whole-grain pasta is diabetes-friendly, so is going from a creamy to an oil- or tomato-based sauce.

Smithson suggests choosing sauces with an olive oil and fresh garlic base, both of which offer potential heart-health benefits.

Use a ¼ cup of olive oil and four or five garlic cloves per pound of cooked pasta, says Smithson. Portion the sauce equally among each serving of pasta (generally ½ cup of cooked noodles).

Red pasta sauces like marinara or classic tomato are other great options, “as they are lower in overall fat and calories” than cream-based sauces, says Jana Westin, RDN, MPH, CDCES, a nutritionist in private practice in Fresno, California. Just stick to a ½ cup to ¾ cup serving size, she adds.

When buying packaged red sauce, choose a jar without added sugar and, ideally, no more than 10 grams (g) of carbohydrates and 400 milligrams (mg) of sodium per ½ cup serving, says Westin.

4. Experiment With Vegetable Noodles

If you can’t digest wheat or you’d like to cut down on carbohydrates even more, try vegetable noodles. If you don’t have a spiralizer or mandoline — two kitchen tools used to spiralize produce by hand — you can use a vegetable peeler. Simply place the peeled vegetable strips in boiling water for 20 seconds, and then transfer the “noodles” into a bowl of ice, says Smithson. “For ease of preparation, it’s fine to purchase spiralized vegetable noodles,” she adds.

As long as they’re not made from squash or sweet potatoes, spirals made from nonstarchy vegetables will be your lowest-carbohydrate option, says Smithson. Plus, vegetable noodles are typically lower in calories and rich in vitamins and minerals.

5. Practice Portion Control

Being mindful of portion sizes is key to enjoying pasta when you’re managing type 2 diabetes. “The goal is to keep blood sugar levels from spiking too high,” says Westin.

6. Add a Lean Protein

Combining a protein source with a carb-heavy dish like pasta can help you avoid rapid blood sugar spikes (and subsequent crashes), as protein digests more slowly than carbohydrates, says Smithson. Adding protein also makes pasta more satisfying, and may prevent you from overloading your plate with carbohydrates, says Anderson-Haynes.

7. Go Easy on the Cheese

People with diabetes don’t need to avoid cheese — moderation and choosing the right type can keep your pasta nutritious. A single serving of cheese is only 1 ounce (oz), or roughly the length of your thumb from tip to base. Try your best to stick to this thumb-size serving, says Westin.