A favorite food blog of mine is SkinnyTaste. It’s a healthy recipe blog where the owner, Gina, creates recipes that taste delicious but are low in fat and calories. One of the things that I like about her recipes is that they use whole foods, and lower the fat content through the cooking technique or the quantity and not by using fake foods.
It was on SkinnyTaste that I first learned about “Zoodles”-noodles made from zucchini using a gadget called a spiralizer. The concept of using zucchini as a pasta replacement isn’t new. I remember making zucchini “ribbons” with a vegetable peeler during the low carb craze of the late 90s. But the spiralizer gadgets have brought even more veggies into the game.
I soon found another great blog, Inspiralized, that features recipes made from spiraled vegetables. With the help of so much recipe sharing on social media, spiral veggies have become quite trendy.
It was about three years ago that I asked my husband for a spiralizer for Christmas. I basically selected one on Amazon that had good reviews and was kind of at the mid price point. He bought it and it sat in its box unopened for three years. It wasn’t that I didn’t want it or appreciate it, it just seemed that winter wasn’t the most motivating time to try it. Plus, I had a newborn and cooking was hit and miss.
However, this summer I unboxed my spiralizer and got rolling with it, literally. I started as simple as possible with zucchini noodles that I enjoyed with meat sauce. My husband is a picky eater and spaghetti is one of the foods that he really likes. I don’t dislike it but to me, it’s a meal that lays heavy on my tummy. However, subbing in zucchini for the pasta makes it a much lighter option. You’re saving on carbs and calories plus getting the vitamins and fiber from a fresh veggie. And you can actually breathe after eating it-even with a piece of garlic Texas toast!
Here’s what you need to know: First, zucchini noodles are not going to taste or feel like pasta. So, you need to park that expectation at the kitchen door. Instead, they are a nice, healthy substitute for pasta. The texture is less smooth than pasta. If you’re a texture person then you need to prepare yourself for that.
Second, they are very simple to prepare. After spiralizing (I’ll talk more about my machine in a second), I simply sautéed my zoodles in a little bit of olive oil until they were soft. A few times I seasoned them with a little touch of garlic powder, and it would be tasty to throw some chopped fresh garlic in with them as they cook. They cook up much faster than boiling water and cooking pasta so that’s a benefit.
As a sprializer, I use the Paderno World Cuisine Tri-Blade Spiral Slicer. It’s not the fanciest one on the market but it gets the job done. It has three blades as the name suggests for different widths of spirals. My brother-in-law uses the widest blade to make potato ribbons that he deep fries for homemade potato chips. Yum! This machine is easy to clean which is always a concern with any type of kitchen gadget. It also has a storage area underneath it to keep your blades. It’s also really fun to put a veggie on there and turn the crank and watch the noodles form!
Basically, this spiral veggie fad is one that I may be late getting into but that I plan to embrace more fully. I’ve already pinned several recipes and I’d like to try sweet potatoes next. I could really see making some tasty soup with using veggie noodles in place of pasta noodles.
Because zucchini is SO plentiful in the summer-raise your hand if someone tried to give you zucchini this summer!-I wanted to try freezing some zoodles. I read several blogs and the folks’ results with freezing were all over the place. I tried a few bags that I haven’t eaten yet. I’ll edit this post when I have tried my frozen zoodles.