If you love pasta, but don’t like feeling weighed down and don’t have a lot of time to spend in the kitchen… this dish is for you! It is super light and loaded with vitamins and nutrients and takes about 10-minutes to make. Ready… set… go!
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I got this William Sonoma Spiralizer as a gift a few years ago from my fabulous/intelligent/beautiful sister who knows me all too well. It’s perfect because it has three different blades, so your dishes can have some variation. You can also use it with an assortment of fruits and vegetables. From making shoe-string sweet potato fries, to apple chips… it’s truly a wonderful product to invest in, if you can.
I like using the thinner-blade option for this dish though. It really helps drive home the Italian dining experience, minus the bloat… carbs… calories… and three-hour meal.
Zucchinis are fantastic for your health, because they’re low in calories and 95% water. It’s a great vegetable (botanically, it’s a fruit, but for this purpose it serves as a veggie) to combat bloat and get your body into an alkaline state. An “acidic” state is created by acidic foods-dairy, animal protein, sugar, wheat, which all induce inflammation. Inflammation often creates disease and other ailments, so it’s important to try and keep your body in an alkaline state with greens, vegetables, fruit… and wine. (okay, I just added the wine, but it does boast resveratrol and antioxidants. That’s great for you too!)
Zucchinis are also loaded with vitamin C and manganese; both help fight free radicals or dangerous things found in the environment like: ozone, cigarettes, x-rays, etc.
I spiralized two medium sized zucchini into a bowl.
As you can see, just two zucchinis can easily serve three. I lightly drizzled it with olive oil and seasoned it with a dash of sea salt. You could definitely stop here and have a nice, lightly seasoned noodle, or you can add in some marinara sauce, warm or cold, and add some mushrooms and onions to go for the full-spaghetti experience. Which is what I did here.
Add in your favorite marinara sauce. I didn’t use the entire jar, just 8 ounces of the marinara sauce and tossed it into the noodles. I also added in 3/4 c. of shiitake mushrooms and let the mushrooms absorb some of the sauce, along with the noodles.
You don’t want to make the noodles too far in advanced because they get watery. It’s a dish you pretty much want to make and then serve.
You could also add in some additional vegetables like bell peppers and onions along with additional seasoning; oregano, parsley, pepper and garlic. This marinara sauce I used actually had garlic and oregano in it, so it didn’t need much flavoring. I did, however, add in some turkey meatballs for the kids and my husband. I love to crockpot, so I crock-potted these turkey meatballs earlier in the day and then added them to the noodles I made that night. Just like pasta we get out at a restaurant.
It’s the perfect dish to get creative with and have a little fun!
Mangiare e divertirsi! Eat and enjoy!
*If you don’t have a spiralizer you can easily use a vegetable peeler. Just lay the zucchini on a cutting board and use the peeler to make flat noodles. You can thin the noodles out too, after you’ve created a ribbon, by running a knife vertically down the zucchini noodle one or two times, or just keep it as is. Don’t let a spiralizer stop you from trying this. Give it a whirl!
