Zucchini Fettuccine with Spinach Pesto

This recipe is insanely easy to make, plus super healthy – vegetarian, vegan (if you omit the cheese), low carb and gluten free. If you’re using store bought pesto, it’s literally 2 ingredients and 10 minutes, most of which is time used to boil the water. Adding my preferred toppings of toasted pine nuts and parmesan cheese brings the ingredient total to 4. And even making the pesto from scratch like I did only adds about 2 minutes and an extra 3 ingredients. So basically you can totally get away with making this dish 100% from scratch using 7 ingredients (most of which I bet you have in your kitchen already) in about 12 minutes. I would say that’s pretty good for a home cooked meal.

I’ve been looking for places in my life where I can replace high carb, high calorie, and more processed foods with all around better-for-you substitutions, without loosing out too much on taste. Pasta is one of my favorite foods in the world, and if I’m being completely honest, there is nothing that can really replace it. But this zucchini fettuccine certainly comes very close. The zucchini is a blank canvas much like pasta. Without too much flavor coming from the noodles themselves, they act as a clean slate for soaking up sauce. And this pesto is so delicious, you could slather it on a cardboard box and I would still want to eat it.

Pesto is kind of a big deal in my family. It’s one of my brother’s favorite pasta sauces, and in the summer my dad grows so much basil you could almost make a fresh pesto every single day. In fact he ends up with so much of it by the end of the summer that he freezes the pesto in ice cube trays, and uses them as a perfectly portioned sauce that brings you that taste of summer all winter long. I definitely reccomend doing this with your left over basil, and in fact this can be done with any fresh herb. However, since we are not in the midst of summer and store bought basil can be pretty expensive, I use fresh spinach for this pesto, which works almost as well as the basil plus is full of super good for you nutrients.

For my noodles: I know that there are a number of products that automatically turn vegetables into noodles, but those just seem like a waste of money and space when this is so easy. I used a wide vegetable peeler (like the one pictured in the image below) to peel through the whole zucchini until I am left only with a pile of thin but wide strips. Then I just used my knife to cut them thinner, into fettuccine width, and viola! Zucchini fettuccine.

While this dish takes a departure from a traditional pesto fettuccine with its substitutions for a few key ingredients, it still gives you all the same flavors in a healthier (and more cost effective) package.

Zucchini Fettuccine

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Prep time

5 mins

Cook time

2 mins

Total time

7 mins

Recipe type: Vegan, Vegetarian, Low Carb, Paleo

Serves: 2

Ingredients

2-3 large zucchini, or 4-5 smaller zucchini
Salt

Instructions

Liberally salt a large pot of boiling water.
Peel zucchini skin (if desired) and then use vegetable peeler (I use a wide one) to peel through the entire zucchini until you are left only with a pile of zucchini strips about 2-3 inches wide, depending on the size of your zucchini. Stack the strips into a neat pile and cut into ¼ to ½ in wide strips - your "fettuccine." Repeat will all zucchini.
Cook zucchini noodles in boiling water for about 1 minute - they will be cooked but still have a bite to them
Transfer zucchini noodles to a cold water bath to stop the cooking process as to not overcook the noodles - they will become mushy.
Dry zucchini with a clean kitchen towel so that excess water will not make your sauce watery.
Top zucchini noodles with your favorite sauce (see my recipe for spinach pesto below) and enjoy!

Spinach Pesto