Zucchini and Spaghetti Squash Vegetable Pasta Recipe

Made with zucchini and spaghetti squash, this vegetable pasta recipe was inspired by an incredibly simple yet surprisingly delicious entree I had recently at Chez l’Epicier, a farm to fork French Canadian restaurant on Palm Beach island. I went to the restaurant with my family the night before Thanksgiving. Knowing the next evening’s dinner would consist of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole and pumpkin pie, I figured I would order on the lighter side for Thanksgiving eve. Typically if I am eating out and not particularly hungry I’ll just order the vegetable plate. The vegetable plate is almost always not on the menu, by the way. But if you ask for it the chef will generally pull together a beautiful (and often very generous!) plate of vegetable side dishes from other items on the menu. Ordering the vegetable plate is a clean eating dining trick I learned a few years back and it almost never lets me down. Rather than ending up with mish mash of different vegetables though, Chez l’Epicier offered their own version of the vegetable plate as an entree dish consisting of zucchini and squash “spaghetti”, capers, Kalamata olives, sundried tomato and goat cheese.  The combination of ingredients not only sounded interesting, but also like something I could rather easily recreate at home…. If you haven’t experimented with vegetable “pasta” yet then you are definitely missing out. Although you could certainly combine capers, kalamata olives, sundried tomatoes and goat cheese together with angel hair pasta and end up with a tasty enough pasta dinner, substituting vegetable “noodles” for grain noodles makes the whole thing far more interesting. I even think the vegetable pasta makes it taste better too. There’s just something about cutting vegetables into a “noodle” shape that totally alters their flavor, for the better! And of course more vegetables = more nutrients. You can never go wrong with more vegetables! However, if you want to make the vegetable pasta recipe a bit heartier you can always stir in a cup or two of cooked angel hair pasta at the same time you add the zucchini “pasta” and spaghetti squash (see Step 2 in the recipe below.) If you are new to making vegetable pastas, the only thing you need to get started is a vegetable spiralizer. If you have a good spiralizer, you can crank vegetables noodles out in minutes. Here’s a video that shows you just how quick and easy zucchini pasta is to make.

As for where to buy a spiralizer, you can pick one up at Williams-Sonoma or order one online on Amazon for around $40.00.  I personally prefer the Paderno Spiralizer (see photo above) as it is both lightweight and durable but also incredibly easy to use.

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