Mad about ZOODLES (zucchini noodles)
I love zoodles. What are they? Basically they are noodles made of zucchinis.
Why do I love them?
- Low carb alternative to grain pasta: if you use 2 medium sized zucchinis, it has 62 kcal and 12g carbs (of which 4g fiber, 6g sugar). Wheat spaghetti, let’s say a portion is 56g, that is already 200kcal, of which 41g carbs and 7g protein. The picture below is a portion of 100kcal…. but would it make you full? NO WAY.
- Taste great and you can prepare it ever-so-easily. And it is pretty fun to spiralise zucchinis!
There are tons of recipes but so far my favourites are as below:
1. Korean style Jap Chae (replacing high carb sweet potato noodles & using very little sesame oil)
Original Jap Chae uses sweet potato noodles and lots of sesame oil & sugar to season. Often they would also use beef seasoning called Dashida, which makes all the Korean dishes incredibly tasty but check out the ingredients:
Salt, monosodium glutamate, blended seasoning(salt, wheat starch, onion powder, garlic powder, beef meal. pepper), Sugar, powdered soy sauce, beef tallow, glucose, amino-acid soy sauce, beef bone stock, corn starch. Contains less than 1.0%: Flavormate, 5′-inosine monophosphate, stew flavor, bouillon flavor, beef stock, garlic flavor, 5′-guanosine monophosphate, onion flavor, succinic acid, citric acid.
My version does not contain Dashida nor sugar. I just use half a tablespoon (or less) organic sesame oil, Japanese low sodium soy sauce with dashi, and Himalayan pink salt, that’s it. Feel free to use some paprika powder and black pepper, I don’t use them coz I’ve recently tested intolerant to those…. to be honest, it does not really make any difference to my dishes. We are accustomed to use black pepper on every dishes but – why???
Personally I like eating raw zoodles. You can stir-fry them but it get to saggy… I like the crunchy texture of the noodles! Here I just put them with bell pepper in a bowl, and put some salt over. that would release some water already.
Add whatever vegetables you have – mushroom, spinach, tomatoes, garlic…. here I added some lean ground beef (NZ grass fed beef, baby!), which is well-browned before mixed with veggies.
2. Zoodle bolognese with NZ grass-fed beef!
Needless to say what’s inside….. YUMMY!!! oh, no sugar either!
3. Zoodles with calamari in light tomato sauce – cannot remember what spice I put over them!
4. Zoodle Jap Chae with Prawns.
Much leaner than ground beef
5. Zoodles with salmon flakes in light tomato sauce
There is nothing else to replace tomatoes to make delicious sauce for zoodles. I don’t like dry ‘pasta’ dishes. I don’t like cream sauce. so I don’t really have many options.
6. Jap Chae variation with steaks
Here zoodles were stir-fried but it became saggy. Sorry the order of pictures are a bit messed up!
Low carb, low fat, rich in lean protein 😀 What more do we need!
