Call me basic, but I am not ashamed: I bought a spiralizer. Now don’t get me wrong, I love pasta, probably more than the average person. But the dietitian in me couldn’t let the opportunity pass to turn vegetables into noodles. The pure creativity of this glorious concept  is a major win in nutrition world and I definitely want to be a part of the spiralized bandwagon.

So I did a little research about vegetables, recipes, and all things spiralized. The hard and fast evidence I deduced from my 3-minute google search informed me to start with zucchini because it is a soft vegetable to spiralize and the size and shape make it easy to manuever for newbies. And, being the new kid on the guac around here (sorry, I had to!), I wanted to stick to the easiest options when talking logistics.

Now time for the recipe. I’ve seen a lot of traditional spaghetti ideas, which I definitely want to try, but I wanted to make my first spiralizing experience memorable and a little bold. After a very lengthy debate inside my own head, I landed on spiralized zucchini pad thai. I love pad thai, and LOVE the noodles in it, so I figured this would be a good way to test if spiralizers lived up to their name. Go big or go home, right? And in my personal opinion, they lived up to their name and surpassed it with flying colors. But hey, you be the judge.

        

Spiralized Zucchini Pad Thai

Yield: 3-4 servings

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons reduced sodium sesame oil

3 large zucchinis

1 1/2 large chicken breasts, cooked and shredded (or other meat of choice)

1 sliced red bell pepper

1 sliced yellow bell pepper

1 1/2 cup sliced purple cabbage

1 1/2 cup shredded carrots

1/4 cup chopped green onion

1/4 cup chopped cilantro

1/4 cup peanuts

Sauce:

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/3 cup honey

1/3 cup reduced sodium soy sauce

2 tablespoons rice vinegar

2 tablespoons reduced sodium sesame oil

2 teaspoons minced ginger

2 teaspoons sriracha

Instructions:

1. Spiralize dem zucchinis. Go get ’em tiger, it’s now or never. Follow directions from your spiralizer for this part, as each one is a little different.
2. Heat the sesame oil and vegetables over the stove top on medium heat. Vegetables usually take longer to heat, so start with these to tenderize them before adding the chicken (or other meat). When the vegetables are tender, toss in the zucchini and shredded chicken. Now’s your time to shine.
3. On a separate burner in a small saucepan, whisk together all ingredients for the peanut sauce over low heat. This sauce doesn’t need to get too hot, so don’t overdo it out of excitement!
4. When the sauce is homogenous, pour over the zucchini dish and combine.
5. Dish it up, add in the cilantro, peanuts, and green onion for garnish. Sit back, enjoy, and relish in the fact that you made your first spiralized recipe. You go, glen coco!