Zoodles

A couple months ago my friend posted the most amazing pasta dish on Instagram and as the likes were coming in, it came out in the comments that the noodles were in fact made from zucchini! Zoodles – zucchini not pasta! Isn’t that amazing? Turns out she made them with a Paderno Spiral Vegetable Slicer and I knew immediately we needed one for our kitchen. Turns out, my husband was struggling to think of a Valentine’s Day gift and ended up getting me one – how romantic, ha! Anyways…we. are. addicted! And before I walk you through how to use the “machine” (I use the term lightly as it’s a hand crank system with super sharp blade, not electric or anything), I wanted to share that zoodles are SO good, they can even confuse your toddler into eating them, thinking they are her beloved noodles!

There’s not too much to making your zoodles, just stick one end of the zucchini into the blade and the other on the prongs, then use the handle to turn the zucchini while pressing forward and out come zoodles on the other side.

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So easy. A couple notes: You will end  up with some unbelievably long zucchini noodles so you may want to break the noodles off at one point so they don’t get too long. You can also see the absolute center of the zucchini isn’t used and you end up with a long cylinder of the zucchini at the end – you could always dice it up and add it to your sauce!

You can eat zoodles like regular pasta with any sort of sauce. We found a great recipe in the Williams-Sonoma catalog (they sell the same Paderno Spiral Vegetable Slicer that we have) with a sauteed butternut squash sauce with thyme, lemon, and garlic that we also added grilled shrimp to, it was great.

 More to come from our new Paderno Spiral Vegetable Slicer! I am thinking sweet potato noodles, next – and once we start getting our CSA again, forget it – everything is turning into a noodle!