I have always looked at zucchini noodles with great envy because they look so tasty and low-carb and yet I still don't have that special spiralizer to make zucchini noodles π
However, I overcame this envy by making zucchini noodles in another and simple way which still gives very similar taste, I believe, and can be a great way to enrich your recipes with this different kind of pasta. πΏ
Zucchini noodles are great because they don't have that much calories and carbs as regular pasta does and which can often cause this heaviness after eating a very tasty but high-calorie meal. Unless you can control yourself better unlike myself π
But you can eat much more zucchini pasta and not feel that heaviness - at least for me it's very tasty and kind of a light food and yet I can pretend that it is some cool spaghetti dish π
So, if you are like me and you don't have special spiralizer for zucchini noodles, check out my recipe on how to make zucchini noodles in a simple and affordable way. π₯
You will need:
This was one portion
- 1 large or 2-3 small zucchini
- 1 small onion
- 3 cloves of garlic
- 1 medium-sized tomato or several small ones
- A handful of fresh basil (15 g)
- Pinch of salt
- 0.5 teaspoon of nutritional yeast
- 45 g. tofu
- 1 teaspoon of fresh lemon juice
- 70 ml. water
Preparation:
- Wash the zucchini and use a potato peeler to peel the zucchini into strips with strong pressure. Just push the peeler into zucchini while peeling and try to make the strips as thick as possible. It is best to peel just the skin of the whole zucchini but you can also add some strips of the zucchini itself (not only the skin). You can use either one large zucchini or 2-3 small ones.
Shave all the skin, the strips can be wide, you will cut them later. The peeled strips in the recipe weighed 240 g. - Sprinkle the peeled strips with a pinch of salt, mix and leave for 10-20 minutes - this will help the water to dissolve from the zucchini.
- After the zucchini strips have settled with salt, squeeze the water from them - you can do this with your hands, a towel or paper towels. It is important to dry the strips as much as possible. I took some paper towels and put zucchini strips inside of them and squeezed so that the paper would soak up the moisture.
- Cut the drained strips into thinner ones (approximately 0.5 cm wide or even less if they are thick enough). It is also ok if some strips break during the process and you end up with shorter ones - that's what happened with some of my strips π
- Now prepare the pesto sauce - add the tofu, basil, lemon juice, a sprinkle of salt, nutritional yeast and water to a bowl and blend everything with a hand blender or food processor until a more or less smooth mixture. Then put the sauce aside.
- Chop the garlic and onion into small pieces. Also chop the tomato into small cubes or if you are using small tomatoes - chop each of them into 4-6 smaller pieces.
- Heat a pan with about 0.5-1 tablespoon of oil.
Fry the onion, garlic and tomato on the oil until fully cooked constantly mixing them (when the garlic and onion will turn yellow/golden).
After they are cooked, put the zucchini strips in the pan, pour the pesto sauce and stir fry for another 3-5 minutes.
And that is it! I like to also sprinkle some nutritional yeast on the final product.
Also, check out my video on how I make these zucchini noodles for more clarity:
And enjoy!
Such amazing recipes and dishes are always superb. π
Thank you!!
Excellent recipe @plantasticka, I think it's great that you make these wonderful zucchini noodles yourself, and that pesto is delicious. Very good post, very detailed and well explained. Greetings and thanks for bringing your wonderful recipes to the vegan community.
Thanks a lot!
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Love it! I Love zucchini noodles and pesto. One of my go-to quick and easy weeknight dinners. For a very long time, I didn't have a spiralizer too but I used a cheap julienne peeler that you can find in most grocery stores. I just found an old picture back from my spiralized veggies with a julienne peeler. This also works for carrots, sweet potatoes, and beets.
These look so great and so much better haha π Thank you for sharing, I really need to upgrade my tools and purchase the one you have! Looks amazing π€€
Haha... If you really like zucchini noodles I would recommend buying one of these in the pic below. This is what I am using now. Not sure if you can see it very well but it is small, doesn't take up a lot of space and is not expensive either. Plus easy to clean. And way better for spiralizing zucchini. I think they are called second generation hand spiralizer. Take care and happy spiralizing
I am getting hungry just by looking at your zucchini here π They look so appetizing. I will check out if we have this kind of device easily accessible in my country, thank you so much!
Delicious! And yes, I've done it with a vegetable grater before too. It works!
That's nice! Thank you!
I really like this combination of vegetables; good healthy option. Thanks for sharing
Thank you!