I have been wanting to make raw zucchini pasta for ..um…ever! I never quite got around to doing it because I use a hmmm lets call it “vintage” food processor and it only has one blade which definitely doesn’t do this and I thought instead of a food processor I would need a spiralizer to do it.
I was wrong! The other day I was walking out of the grocery store and there was a man demonstrating some incredible vegetable peelers that do practically everything a fancy processor will do without having to clean all the finicky parts. I know I love to create in the kitchen and I get quite in the zone and sometimes quite messy (Corey is rolling his eyes at the “quite” messy part) but I’m not so fond of the clean up afterwards so anything that makes it easier I’m all over it.
I bought the one that can make spaghetti out of veggies and I couldn’t be more excited. Raw veggie pastas like this zucchini pasta are such fantastic ways to get more raw veg into your diet. The lovely enzymes and nutrients all stay in tact because there is no heat needed.
I tried to fool my father in law into thinking it was real pasta but he was having none of it. Maybe with some Bolognese sauce over the top I would have better luck but if you love veggies you will find that this is as close to a healthy pasta as you can get without all the glutenness.
We had some basil growing in our herb garden that was going bananas and had to be cut right back to I made a pesto with it. I learned a little trick from my friend, Mike, that if you add a teaspoon of ketchup to the basil pesto it really brings the flavours together. I haven’t included that in the recipe here but try it for yourself and see what you think. Start off with a very little bit of ketchup because you can always add more but you can’t take away!
- 1 big bunch of basil (about 40g)
- 1 clove garlic
- ¼ cup finely grated parmesan cheese
- 50g cashews or pinenuts
- ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
- salt and pepper to taste
- 3 large zucchini
- olive oil to drizzle
- juice of ½ lemon
- a pinch of sea salt
- Preheat the oven to 180C (350F)
- Toast the nuts lightly for 5 minutes.
- In a food processor or using a manual mortar and pestle pound the pesto ingredients together making sure not to over process as you want to retain the vibrant green of the basil. Set aside.
- Using a spiralizer, food processor or nifty peeler, shred the zucchini into spaghetti like strands.
- In a bowl combine the zucchini pasta, lemon juice, pinch of salt and drizzle of olive oil and using your hands gently massage the spaghetti for 2 minutes ( this helps to soften it)
- Then add the pesto and again using your hands, massage the pesto in until the pasta is well coated.
- Serve with chopped cherry tomatoes, a crumble of feta cheese or just as is.
- Serves 2
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