One of my new spring top favorites is these zucchini spaghetti with avocado pesto sauce, roasted pine nuts, and a parmesan cheese. It’s super light, fresh, juicy and creamy; with a pleasant crunch of nuts and parmesan cheese. Fast and easy recipe for a late night dinner on the balcony or terrace with an ice cold bottle of rosé. Hope you are convinced.
Most exciting is that I finally can share this recipe! So much has happened in these past couple months. Apart from hectic work and traveling, we moved to a new apartment. So up until very recently, all the spare time was devoted in renovating, decorating, shopping for screwdrivers and anchors (if you have no clue what that is – good for you!). On top of that, I was not able to find my camera. Ironically enough I found it in the last box to be unpacked.
I also was not cooking that much lately, which didn’t feel good at all.
So great that now everything is pretty much resolved and settled. Double great, is that we managed to organize the new place by the time the asparagus and strawberry season kicked in. Amazing time to be back to Masha’s kitchen.
Back to my zucchini noodles. I know that many people are skeptical about vegetable spaghetti/noodles. Why would you call it spaghetti when it’s not spaghetti??? I suggest we leave the etymology aside and will focus on the fact that idea of making spaghetti out of zucchini, carrot, sweet potato, pumpkin or whatever, – is pretty awesome. It tastes great, it looks pretty, it is perfect for the summer and it is healthy and light.
Funny thing that when I told Patrick (my husband) that I’ll cook zucchini spaghetti today, he said “cool”. I was a bit surprised, as normally he is neutral to my vegetarian experiments. He ate it, totally loved it, asked for more, complimented me! I was very happy and told him – “great that you liked it because it’s also healthy, low- carb and very good for you!” He looked at me surprised and asked: but there was still normal pasta inside, or?
Conclusion: if you are dealing with a tough skeptic, call it zucchini pasta, say it’s full of carbs, and you’ll succeed.
But to be serious, it’s just a great recipe which can be a stand-alone meal or a great side dish for salmon, steak, grilled shrimps or chicken.
Also, it is super easy to make! All you need is a vegetable spiralizer, a simple vegetable peeler, or any other special slicer. I bought mine in a supermarket for 10 euro.
Other than that, it takes probably a couple of minutes to slice the zucchini, 1 minute to prepare avocado pesto, less than a minute to boil zucchini in salted water, and another minute to mix it.
Parmesan is optional but highly recommended. If you go vegan, it tastes amazing even without cheese.
Ingredients
- 1 large zucchini
- ½ avocado
- 1 clove of garlic
- 1 cup of basil leaves
- 50 gm of roasted pine nuts
- 2 tablespoons of lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon of olive oil
- Shredded parmesan cheese to serve
- Sea salt, and freshly ground pepper
Instructions
- In a large bowl bring 1 liter of water to boil. Slice zucchini with vegetable spiralizer or a special slicer.
- Mix in blender all ingredients for avocado pesto (saving 1 tablespoon of pine nuts for serving)
- Place zucchini noodles in boiling water for about 30 seconds. Drain well.
- Pour the hot water out of the bowl, return zucchini noodles in it, add pesto and carefully mix until the zucchini spaghetti are covered in avocado pesto sauce. The trick is that the bowl is still hot so it will warm up the avocado pesto.
- Springle with pepper and salt. Serve with the rest of pine nuts and parmesan cheese
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