Recipe: Zucchini Pasta with Minted Avocado Sauce

Zucchini Pasta with Minted Avocado Sauce | extremely tasty pasta dish made in minutes

At SHDC we believe that eating right is a major part in maintaining a healthy lifestyle and are always on the lookout for tasty, nutritious meals that tick all the boxes – and boy does this recipe do that! This creamy, rich and delicious pasta dish is inspired by Deliciously Ella‘s recipe (we substituted brazil nuts for almonds and added a little salami to the mix).

If you’re trying to limit the amount of gluten in your diet, or struggle to eat your 5 serves of veggies a day this one is awesome. The combination of the zucchini pasta with the creamy mint avocado sauce echoes the textures of carbonara minus the nasties that tend to leave you feeling bloated and exhausted. Best bit –  it can be prepped and on your plate in under 10mins!

Ingredients

• 5 zucchinis
• 2 avocados
• handful of fresh mint leaves
• handful of nuts (we used almonds and cashews but you could use brazil nuts instead)
• 1/2 lime juice
• salt & pepper to taste
• dozen mushrooms (we used brown swiss but you could get a little adventurous here and play around with the variety)
• olive oil
• zest from half a lemon (or you could use the zest from your lime)

Instructions

Pasta – The Spiralizer is our new favourite tool in the kitchen, allowing you to make zucchini pasta in under 1 minute. Follow the instructions on your machine to achieve the desired thickness or alternatively just use a vegetable peeler along the length of the zucchini to achieve a fettuccine style pasta. Once you’ve prepared your pasta you can either place them in your bowl ready to eat raw, or put a dash of extra virgin olive oil in a pan and cook the noodles for about 1 minute with a little lemon zest to slightly soften them.

Topping – Cut your mushrooms into thin slices, drizzle with a little olive oil and gently heat in a large frying pan for about 5 minutes. We had some leftover salami we wanted to use so we also heated it up at this point. Keep in mind that this is such a great dish to have without meat and it really isn’t necessary.

Sauce – While your mushrooms are cooking you can crack on with your sauce. Halve and deseed the avocados before scooping out the flesh and placing in a bowl. Add your mint, olive oil, lime juice and nuts, then blend altogether. It makes it super easy and quick doing this in a blender, however we used a hand stick and it was just as effective even though it took a little longer. If your sauce is a little too rich or too thick you can add 1/2 cup of water at this stage, but just see how you go. You should end up with a creamy consistency, add salt and pepper to taste.

Plate Up – to plate up place your zucchini noodles in the bottom of a bowl, spoon over some sauce and top with the mushrooms. You could also garnish the dish with some sunflower seeds or pomegranate seeds, but it really doesn’t need much.

Serves 4.

Have you tried Zucchini Pasta?

Comment below and let us know.