Thai Inspired Zucchini Noodles {Recipe ReDux}
Gardens across America are harvesting zucchini. This green vegetable is packed with potassium and vitamin C. From slicing and dicing, to shredding, julienning, and spiralizing, there are many cuts you can make to zucchini to add variety to your meals. Try this Thai Inspired Zucchini Noodle recipe, filled with flavors like garlic, sesame oil, cilantro, and peanuts, and made flavorful with the sweet Thai chili sauce that’s a must in our pantry. Thai Inspired Zucchini Noodles are the perfect snack, side dish or base for your stir-fry! No spiralizer needed!
It’s garden harvest time! Even with a small garden you can have abundance. In 225 square feet, we’ve harvested this in the last 14 days:
- 53 zucchini
- 1.5# of snap peas (edible from the shell to the peas inside)
- 7.5# of green beans
- 2.5# of green lettuce
- 1# spinach
The Cooking Challenge
This month’s Recipe ReDux monthly cooking challenge involved “With produce galore, now’s a great time to enjoy lots of fruits and vegetables. Show us how you’re serving the bounty of gardens and orchards in shapes like ribbons, noodles, cut-outs, or other creative cuts.”
Well, I think I can say we’ve abundantly been blessed with the food coming from our garden.
The Zucchini Harvest
Best harvested when four to eight inches long (don’t wait for them to become baseball bats – they are woody in texture – pun intended), zucchini plants love warm and humid weather and they will abundantly produce. Of course, it helps that my daughter decided to plant FIVE zucchini plants from seed to see if they would grow! This past spring, I let my kids completely and totally take charge of our garden, from the choices in what to plant to the garden design to the official planting. Of course, I offered my guidance, but they did the whole thing. It made my heart happy to see them working together and enjoying gardening as much as I do. Plus there are so many mind and body benefits to gardening.
I’ll say it again: Your kids are never too old or young to get growing in the garden.
[Tweet “From a 225 square foot garden, check out this garden harvest! Via jenhaugen.com @jenhaugen #TheRecipeReDux”]
Back to the zucchini…because of our abundance, we’ve been trying all sorts of ways to cook up this fantastic vegetable. While tradition says to shred it and bake it into cake, brownies or cookies, I wanted my kids to really begin to eat this vegetable for what it is. Here’s what I’ve tried:
- I’ve cut it in thick horizontal slices, drizzled basil flavored olive oil with a sprinkle of salt and pepper…a no go. Texture a problem. (I happened to like it.)
- I’ve sliced it into rounds, sautéed it with butter and salt and pepper. Yum.
- I’ve thrown it into veggie stir-fry. Delicious.
But, when I made this recipe, the Thai Inspired Zucchini Noodles, my daughter said, “That’s amazing, I’d eat zucchini like this every time.”
Thai Inspired Zucchini Noodles
Well, I guess I will be making this a lot more often then! It was on a whim I came up with this recipe as I wanted to combine those bold Asian flavors along with a hit of sweet and spiciness that my family really loves.
And, don’t worry – you don’t need a spiralizer! I don’t have one so I used an inexpensive tool called the julienne peeler. I used to sell Pampered Chef a number of years ago and I love their tools – here’s the julienne peeler I have.
So here you have it…try Thai Inspired Zucchini Noodles!!
I would love to know what’s abundant in your garden right now and how you are using it! Share in the comments!
Thai Inspired Zucchini Noodles
Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon canola oil
- 2 cups julienned zucchini (about 1 medium)
- Salt and Pepper to taste
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder (or fresh minced clove of garlic)
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil
- 1 teaspoon reduced sodium soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon Sweet Thai Chili Sauce
- 1 tablespoon chopped cilantro
- 1 tablespoon chopped roasted peanuts
- Lime wedge, if desired
Instructions
- Warm a large, non-stick skillet to medium high heat on stove top.
- Add canola oil, zucchini, salt, pepper and garlic powder. Sauté for 2-3 minutes, stirring occasionally. (Do not cover with a lid to prevent soggy zucchini noodles).
- Add soy sauce and Sweet Thai Chili Sauce to mixture, stir in gently. Cook additional 1-2 minutes.
- Remove from pan into bowl and toss with cilantro, peanuts and squeeze of lime if desired.
I love Thai food and this looks absolutely amazing! I’m definitely going to have to make it soon!
Thai flavors are my favorite, so I am all over this!