Creamy Zucchini Noodles
18 August 2018 by Natanja
Pasta with spiralized zucchini in a delicious cream cheese sauce spiced with chili and ginger.
Today’s recipe is a tasty noodle dish that brings the heat! Spiced with fresh ginger and chili this dish is anything but bland. Served with a gorgeous creamy and velvety cream cheese sauce, it makes a delicious dinner that can be served in a little over 30 minutes. So get out your spiralizer and let’s make this flavourful dish!
Spiralizing
I recently bought my first spiralizer on Amazon after I came up with the idea for this dish and was dying to try it. I know, I know, I am super late to this whole ‘spiralize your veggies’ trend. After hearing about it for the past year or so I thought I would finally give it a go and see what’s so great about it. While spiralizing food isn’t life changing by any means it certainly is a fun new way to prepare veggies. And for some reason, veggies that have been spiralized taste different than if you just julienne them. Or maybe that’s just the spiralizing craze catching up to me…
Either way, I had a lot of fun developing this recipe and getting to know the different settings on my spiralizer. I found that the 1/4 inch setting is perfect for zucchini since they do shrink quite a bit when cooked. I also couldn’t help myself and spiralized a few other veggies we had in the fridge, only to discover that root veggies can be quite a work out. But hey, at least I am also getting some exercise at the same time, right? 😉 I know there are various kinds of spiralizers on the market and if you are serious about it you can always upgrade to a better one (that does the arm-work for you), but for now I decided to go with a cheap and simple one. If you do not use a spiralizer regularly, this one is a great one to start out with.
Sauce
Like I mentioned before, today’s recipe is an incredibly flavourful dish. We are adding all kinds of ‘flavor makers’ to our sauce such as onions, garlic, ginger, chili, white wine and lemon zest. There is a lot going on in this dish! I chose the flavors carefully because I really wanted them to work together as a whole. I am happy to report that this dish is balanced and and flavors really compliment each other. The ginger and chili bring the heat while the cream cheese softens the spiciness for a more subtle flavor. The white wine and lemon zest round the dish together perfectly and give it a freshness. Altogether, it just works, trust me!
If you like spicy food I recommend adding 2 chilis to this dish. If only want a bit of warmth, stick to 1 chili. Even though I like spicy food, two chilis was the maximum I could tolerate and I also do not suggest adding more because it would take away from the other flavors. I used red chilis for this dish (the packaging unfortunately didn’t specify what exact type they were) but feel free to use any kind of chili you like, just make sure to adapt the amounts if you are using a more spicy kind of chili. If you are making this for kids, I suggest leaving the chilis out altogether. You can still adapt the spiciness by using ginger and also a bit of pepper.
Let me know in the comment section down below if you give this creamy zucchini noodle dish a try! I always love hearing from you! ♥
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Creamy Zucchini Noodles
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 35 minutes
- Yield: 4 1x
Description
A flavourful pasta dish with a spicy cream cheese sauce
Ingredients
- 3 medium zucchini
- 1 medium yellow onion
- 2 garlic cloves
- 2cm fresh ginger
- 1–2 chilis
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 60ml white wine (1/4 cup)
- 365g cream cheese (1 and 1/2 cups)
- 1 teaspoon fresh lemon zest
- 400g spaghetti noodles (14oz)
- parsley for garnishing
Instructions
- Wash and spiralize the zucchinis. Finely chop the onion and mince the garlic. Peel and grate the ginger and finely chop the chilis.
- Add olive oil to a large skillet and sauté the onion, garlic, ginger and chilis on high heat for about 2 minutes, until soft.
- Add the zucchini, season with salt and continue sautéing for about 6 minutes, or until soft. In the meantime, prepare your pasta according to package instructions.
- Deglaze the zucchini with white wine and bring briefly to a boil. Reduce the heat and add in the cream cheese and lemon zest and stir until smooth.
- Lastly add in the noodles and combine everything together well. Taste and add more salt if necessary.
- Garnish with parsley and serve immediately.
Notes
Store any leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days.
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Tagged With: cream cheese, cream cheese sauce, noodles, pasta, zucchini, zucchini noodles
Filed Under: Main Dishes