Meatless Monday: Zucchini ‘spaghetti’ with easy marinara sauce

Twirl this Meatless Monday dish with abandon. Just be sure to have extra napkins at the dinner table! Fresh flavors combine for an easy, tasty meal.

On a Meatless Monday, make your meal easy and delicious. This recipe for zucchini “spaghetti” with easy marinara sauce will do the trick wonderfully! We incorporate the fresh flavor of zucchini to serve as the “spaghetti” that we top with delicious, easy-to-make marinara sauce.

There are several spiral vegetable slicers on the market that you can use to form zucchini (and other veggies) into spaghetti-like strands. But if you don’t have space for one, you can also find inexpensive hand peelers at many kitchen stores that work well, too. And if you don’t want yet another peeler for your drawer, go ahead and use a standard vegetable peeler to peel the zucchini. You’ll still get delicious results, but your “pasta” will look more like fettuccine than spaghetti! This marinara sauce is great on regular pasta dishes, too.

Zucchini “spaghetti” with easy marinara sauce recipe

Serves 2

Ingredients:

• 4 small green zucchini
• 2 (14.5 ounce) cans diced, unseasoned tomatoes in juice, drained and liquid reserved
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 4 basil leaves, chopped
• 1/4 teaspoon salt, or to taste
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper, or to taste
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• Grated Parmesan cheese for garnish

Directions:

1. Use your spiral machine or peeler to peel the zucchini into long, skinny strips, from one tip of the zucchini to the other. Stop when you get to the seeds in the middle. If you don’t have a peeler that forms skinny strips, use a regular vegetable peeler to vertically peel long, thin strips of the zucchini. This will form more of a wider “noodle” from the zucchini, like fettuccini. (Peel away most of the green skin from the zucchini before you start.)
2. Use a few paper towels to pat the zucchini dry. Set it aside.
3. In a stockpot over low heat, add the olive oil. When hot, add the garlic, and cook for a few minutes, just until it softens.
4. Add the tomatoes to the pot and increase the heat to medium. Cook, stirring, for several minutes. Add some of the reserved tomato juice, a little at a time, to the mixture.
5. Add the basil, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes to the mixture and continue to cook for several minutes, stirring. The sauce will thicken a bit.
6. Continue to add the tomato juice to the mixture, a little at a time, cooking it for a few minutes to thicken it.
7. Taste and season the sauce, as needed, and remove it from the heat.
8. Plate the “spaghetti” on individual plates and top it with several spoonfuls of the marinara sauce. Garnish with the Parmesan cheese.

Twirl up a delicious Meatless Monday meal!

More Meatless Monday recipes

Easy bean and veggie chili
Zesty tofu tacos
Sesame-crusted tempeh with lemony vegetables