Perfect Al Dente Zucchini Noodles

If you love pasta as much as I do, but hate the associated bloating and feeling sick afterwards this trick is for you.  Now admittedly as much as I love kitchenware I am not normally one for gadgets.  This is a rare exception and is a kitchen tool I absolutely love and cannot live without.

My secret?  The Spirooli or spiral slicer, which makes the most perfect zucchini noodles!

It slices any hard cell-walled vegetables or fruit (zucchini, cucumbers, carrots, beets, sweet potatoes and more) into long pasta-like strands.  Now these can be used in a variety of applications including pretty salads, dried apples and baked curly fries, but my favorite way is to make pasta.  Zucchini noodles, to be exact.

Now I know, at first it sounds weird and like it would taste nothing like pasta.  But it actually does.  Really.  Choose a straight, even, medium-large zucchini and either peel it (looks like traditional spaghetti this way) or not.  Slice your zucchini into 2 inch lengths, pop it into the machine (the smallest blade makes a spaghetti-like noodle, the flat blade makes fettuccine and the medium blade makes thick udon-style noodles) and turn the handle.  Repeat with the remaining zucchini.

You may want to use clean kitchen scissors to cut your noodles a bit as they will still be very long.  Sprinkle with a pinch of fine Himalayan salt and toss.  Place the noodles into a large sieve over top of a bowl and allow to drain for about an hour (while you make your sauce) or even overnight.  You can skip this step if you like, but I think it gives the noodles the perfect al dente texture and drains out the excess water that will make your sauce watery.

You don’t even cook them, just toss them as is with your healthy sauce of choice.  They literally take five minutes to make (not including drain time if you decide to do this step) and can enjoy these with any favorite raw or cooked pasta sauce (I recommend my ultimate Pasta Primavera (pictured below) or raw fettuccine Alfredo)  Don’t forget to be creative- use these in soup as a substitute to ramen noodles, with stir-fries, pad Thai, noodle based salads, salad rolls or really any way you like.  Enjoy!

Please let me know how these zucchini noodles turn out for you in the comments below and on Facebook!

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