Looking to eat more vegetables without noticing? One thing you can do is to substitute your pasta for zoodles and your cream sauce for a cauliflower sauce. This recipe is a) quick, b) easy and c) 100% vegetables. You can make this vegan if you like, but you can also go with the vegetarian version I am showing you today.
This recipe is a combination of two different ones that I found online. One is for the Zoodles. Zoodles? Yes, zoodles: zucchini noodles. Which means you spiralize your courgette into thin strips so it looks like pasta. The second recipe is for a vegan alfredo sauce. I use the one by Detoxinista, but I gave it my own little twist, which no longer makes it vegan, but extra yummy.
Total time: 20 mins. Prep time: 5 mins. Cooking time: 15 mins. Serves 2.
Ingredients:
- 1 large courgette
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 12 ounces cauliflower florets
- 1 cup water
- salt and pepper to taste
- nutmeg to taste
- Optional: a nub of butter & some cheese (preferably grated)
Tools need:
- Julienne peeler or spiralizer
- a pan
- microwave oven
Step 1: Use a julienne peeler to turn your courgette into thin strips that resembles noodles. It should look something like this:
I don’t like peeling my courgette as I like the green color in contrast with the white sauce, but you could peel it first. Just keep slicing away on one side of the courgette until you hit the seeds in the middle, then keep going until you’ve got nothing but the middle part left.
Step 2: When your sauce is almost ready, pop your zoodles into a microwave on high for about 2 minutes and 30 seconds. The zoodles will ‘cook’ in their own moisture.
Step 3: cut up your cauliflower into florets. 12 ounces is just over 330 grams.
Step 4: boil cauliflower until very soft (8-10 minutes) in 1 cup of water. It is important you use this exact measurement as it will impact the texture of your sauce.
Step 5: Add garlic to a food processor. Add cauliflower (incl. the water you boiled it in!), pepper, salt and nutmeg and blend together.
You should now have something that resembles the consistency of a thick sauce. The more powerful your processor is, the smoother the sauce will be. Mine is a bit lumpy because I simply do not have a very powerful blender.
Step 6: If you’re vegan, stop here. If you’re not and you like to add a little bit more creaminess and flavor to your sauce you can add in some cheese and a bit of butter. Don’t over do it as you don’t want to overpower it. I used only about 1/2 table spoon of butter and 1 – 2 slices of cheese. Grated cheese would work better, but I didn’t have that on hand.
Et voilá, c’est ca! A super easy, healthy recipe that will allow you to eat a double portion of veggies without you even noticing. You can add other elements to this to add some other textures and flavor. You could add mushrooms if you’d like, but of course you can also fry up a bit of ham or maybe even bacon if you are dead set on adding some meat.
I hope you enjoyed this recipe and let me know how you like to make sure you eat enough vegetables in a comment down below!