I tried this zucchini and pasta dish last night using the zucchini as a pasta substitute to cut carbs in half and help with my weight loss.  Zucchini really is the perfect replacement for pasta noodles but you can also try this with yellow squash. I took the zucchini and just halved the pasta. I will try it with just all zucchini next time for the maximum benefit, but sometimes you just need a little pasta mixed in there. It’s great to get all those veggies in your dish but still have it “feel” like normal pasta. Here’s what I did…(recipe for two people)

• Two large zucchini
• Vegetable peeler
• Salt

Peel the zucchini so you have long strips of “noodles”. Do this with the skin and everything. Rotate the zucchini so you are getting a different surface every time you peel. When you get to the seeds, stop at that point. (The seeds tend to make the noodles mushy so, you can cook take the seed core, slice it up into small pieces, saute and throw in with your spaghetti sauce).

Lay out the long zucchini noodles and you can slice these lengthwise to make them even thinner, more like real pasta. You can also use a vegetable slicer or spiral slicer to make julienne or spiral noodles. With two zucchini, I had two piles of “noodles”, each about one and a half cups worth. I salted these, let them sit for a half hour, then rinsed and dried with a paper towel. (I have skipped this part before and the only thing it does is prevent excess water on your plate. The salt draws the water out of the zucchini)

I cooked my whole wheat pasta noodles and removed them from the boiling water with tongs. Then I put the zucchini noodles in the remaining boiling water for one minute. I poured them with the pasta noodles to rinse and drain. I mixed the zucchini and pasta together and topped with my crock pot sauce that had been cooking all day. To cut carbs a bit more, start adding more zucchini and less pasta.

Try this zucchini and pasta substitute dish and let us know here at Burn Fat Club how you liked it!