Zucchini Linguini

About

This delicious pasta sauce came to me from “By Rose Vegetarian Restaurant”, a cafe where I once worked back in the 1990s. Many of the ingredients are “to taste” so you can be creative with this recipe. You can also easily adapt the recipe for a Paleo or Keto diet.

The above feature photo is from Shutterstock and is close to the look of the final product. The photo is actually a vegan bolognese sauce based on soybeans. For vegetarians and vegans, adding beans would substantially increase the protein content of this dish. You could also use white beans, tofu, tempeh or vegetarian ground round. My preference would be to use tempeh which is highly digestible plant protein food. If you prefer to keep the recipe as-is you can increase the protein by choosing noodles made from quinoa. Add a side salad with chopped nuts, flax and /or hemp seed.

Those on a Paleo or Keto diet may wish to add ground meat. Of course they will use noodles compatible with their diet as discussed in the recipe notes.

Ingredients

Directions

1. Saute onions and green pepper until soft (about 10 minutes).
2. Add zucchini and garlic. Simmer 10 more minutes.
3. Add tomato sauce to desired consistency, and heat through. Season.
4. Add a spoonful of lemon juice and a little sugar for a fuller taste.
5. Serve over your choice of linguini noodles.

Notes

1. This recipe is tagged as wheat-free, gluten-free, grain-free and even keto and paleo friendly due to the different types of  pasta available. You can find wheat-free pasta made from spelt or kamut; gluten-free pasta made from brown rice, quinoa or corn and grain-free pasta made from legumes. Konjac aka Shiritaki noodles are suitable for those following a keto or paleo diet. Folks on those diets will want to omit the sugar in this recipe even though it’s a small amount.
2. If choosing a pasta for a special diet be sure to check the ingredients carefully. Some pastas may be made from blends of differing flours or contain other ingredients you need to avoid.
3. Spiralizing has become a trend and if you own a spiralizer you can make linguini from different vegetables. Interestingly, zucchini is one of the more preferred vegetables for this purpose. So you can tweak this recipe by spiralizing the zucchini into noodles and adding a different vegetable to the sauce.

Photo by lavizzara / Shutterstock.com Not a picture of the actual final product of this recipe. Photo has been used for graphical enhancement.