Zucchini Noodles (zoodles) w/ Peanut Ginger Sauce | Vegan, Gluten Free

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I’ll admit, I was skeptical of zoodles for the longest time. After several botched attempts at flavoring or cooking them, I thought that eating noodles made out of zucchini was a trend that would die off quickly.

However, after trying them prepared correctly at a friend’s house, I finally understood what the hype was about.

That was when I decided to pick up a decent veggie noodle maker and get serious about perfecting some recipes – like these zucchini noodles with peanut ginger sauce.

All of main the ingredients are extremely nutrient dense and its a great substitute for regular noodles when you want something lighter.

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The presentation of the dish before being mixed.

After all, what’s not to love? Although pasta is great in its own right, it doesn’t have all of the nutritional benefits of fresh vegetables. If you’re doing athletic activities it can be a great source of fuel, but otherwise it ends up just being empty calories that would have been better spent on foods rich in micronutrients and phytochemicals.

Related Article: Guide to Freezing Zucchini

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Peanut butter ginger zoodles after being thoroughly mixed.

Vegetable noodles are super quick to make once you get the hang of it and easier to clean up than a pot of starchy water.

Ingredients

Zucchini Noodles

Depending on the size of your zucchini, you may want more or less sauce.

• 1 small/medium zucchini

Peanut Ginger Sauce

The peanut ginger sauce is for a single serving which will fill a small ramekin (as pictured here). It’s a great amount for one zucchini, but you may want to double it just in case. Nothing wrong with left overs!

If you don’t have one — be sure to check out our best blenders for making nut butter here.

• 1/3 cup of peanuts
• 1 tbsp of rice wine vinegar
• 1 tbsp soy sauce or tamari
• 2 tsp lime juice
• 2/3  tsp of red miso paste
• 1/2 tsp of ginger powder
• 2 tbsp of water

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Sauce after it has been blended.

Toppings and Garnish

• Arugula sprigs
• Toasted sesame seeds
• Sriracha sauce (optional)

Directions

This recipe is incredibly easy and can be broken down into two steps. Now, keep in mind that we’re not going to cooking our noodles. We have some other dishes (such as our crunchy zucchini straws) where we do cook them, but for this dish, we want to keep everything cool and fresh.

If the idea of raw zucchini strikes you as a bit weird, don’t worry. We promise it’s going to taste amazing once you mix in the ginger peanut sauce.

Make your Zucchini Noodles

The first step in the process is to spiralize your zucchini. No matter what kind of spiralizer you have, it’s ideal to cut the ends off first so that it can line up flush to the blades. We use a handheld crank spiralizer for ours, specifically the Inspiralizer.

Read next:Best Vegetable Noodle Makers & Spiral Slicers

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Our zoodles after being cut with our Inspiralizer.

First, you need to suction-mount your spiralizer to the counter for the best leverage, assuming you’re not using a handheld or electric unit.

Once you’ve got the zucchini cut and the unit suctioned to the counter-top, simply mount the middle it onto the coring blade and then secure in the plastic teeth attached to the crank. Turn the crank while pushing it in with the leverage handle and viola! You’ve got yourself some zoodles.

We made some extra zoodles that we cooked with later, so it may look like more than the 1 small/medium zucchini in the recipe.

Blend the Sauce

Making the sauce for this dish couldn’t be easier. You simply add all of the ingredients to the blender and press go. Given that everyone’s blender is a bit different, here are a few different guidelines you can follow:

• If your sauce is too thick or chunky for your liking, you can add more water but do it a little bit at a time – you can add more, but can’t take any away!
• If your blender isn’t that powerful, you can also use peanut butter or simply soak your peanuts for 30-60 minutes before blending if you want a completely smooth sauce. For peanut butter, you may want to use a tad less, but it will still be good even if you use the same measurement.
• Our final sauce was a bit chunky with peanuts which we felt complimented the dish, so it doesn’t have to be completely smooth.

Assemble

Once you have the sauce, simply pour it on top and admire your work! 

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Everything looks like this before you mix it all together.

If it doesn’t look like it’s going to be enough sauce, be sure to mix everything around first. Since the sauce is thick, everything should be well coated once given a thorough mixing as shown in the second photo.

Once you’re done, sprinkle with some sesame seeds, arugula and sriracha sauce (or another chili sauce that you like).

Enjoy!

Joey Bruno

Hey, I’m Joey. I’ve been cooking since I was a little kid and love everything about it. You can find my writing about food, kitchen appliances (such as blenders) and much more. Thanks for stopping by!