Seems like every Monday morning I am recovering from the weekend. Literally. I do great all week, going to be early, eating well, working out and then Friday through Sunday I blow it. Stay up late, sleep in, eat and drink too much and never sweat it out. NPR recently did a report on Social Jet Lag, basically every weekend I get up so early Friday morning and stay up so late that it’s the equivalent of changing two time zones. Crazy that I do this to myself every week! Does anyone else feel this way ?
In an effort to eat clean and get my week together, I made zucchini noodles. They are gluten-free but still give me the same satisfaction as regular pasta noodles and the creamy avocado is quite filling. Summer is a great time for zucchini and avocado, so this dish is perfect! Seasonal, healthy and something everyone can enjoy! It seems more and more of my friends are going g-free for a multitude of reasons, so I am trying to incorporate more recipes that fit their diets. Plus, the zucchini noodles are vegan and dairy free too! I did serve the zucchini noodles with salmon at the end as you’ll see but the noodles and pasta themselves are vegan.
You’ll need:
1 large zucchini (makes about 2 servings)
1 medium avocado
3 cloves of garlic
Fresh jalapeño for heat if you like
Cilantro
Olive Oil
Kosher Salt
Start by washing the zucchini.
Then cut off the ends. Stand the zucchini on one end and use a vegetable peeler to slice the zucchini into long, thin strips.
All sliced up! Discard the middle part with all the seeds. That part will fall apart in the water anyways.
Put the zucchini strips into a pot of boiling water, just like regular wheat pasta noodles. However, the zucchini will cook much fast. Only requiring about 2 to 3 minutes of boiling time.
Post boiling the noodles should have about the same texture as a regular noodle after boiling.
Drain the zucchini noodles like normal.
For the creamy avocado cilantro sauce, wash and chop up cilantro. About 1/4 a bushel. Slice an entire medium sized avocado and dice up half a jalapeno for heat if you like. Do a rough chop of 3 cloves of garlic.
Put all of that into a food processor with 2 tablespoons of olive oil and 1/2 a tablespoon of kosher salt.
Blend until smooth. Add a tablespoon of water at time if necessary to blend.
Add the sauce to the zucchini noodles and mix together.
Now the zucchini noodles are ready to serve! I served my zucchini noodles with this salmon that I baked in parchment paper!
Enjoy!
[…] I served my salmon-in-a-bag with these zucchini noodles. […]