Pea Pesto Zoodles

1.) Start by prepping your ingredients. You will need to wash the zucchini, basil, and parsley. Then, spiralize your zucchini, and slice up your ham and olives.

2.) Next, put your basil, parsley, peas, pine nuts lemon juice, garlic, and nutritional yeast (or parmesan) in a food processor. While it is mixing up, add in a tablespoon of olive oil. (Add more if the mixture isn’t combined well enough.)

3.) Once all the ingredients are broken down and combined, you should end up with a pesto!

4.) Heat up a pan on medium/medium-high with a tablespoon of olive oil. Add in your ham first so that it can get a bit crispy. After about a minute add in your zoodles, and then your olives. Season with salt and pepper to your liking.

5.) After a about 5 minutes, your zoodles should have shrunken down in size a significantly, and be cooked through. Depending on the water content of your zucchini, you may want to drain out any excess water over a strainer in the sink.

6.) In the pan or in a bowl, mix in your pesto until all the zoodles are coated. Sprinkle with more nutritional yeast/parmesan and salt and pepper.

7.) Eat:)

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Pea Pesto Zoodles (Total Time: 20 mins, Makes: 1 large or 2 small servings)

I’ve been seeing zoodles on instgram and other peoples blogs a lot lately, and wasn’t quite convinced that they would taste any better then covering lettuce with pasta toppings, but I’d figure I’d try it out. End result; they just taste like noodles! I figured the zucchini would take the flavor of whatever you combined it with, so I decided to make a pesto (one of my favorite pasta “sauces”) and add in peas for protein and more veggies. The olives help add a salty element, and the crispy ham mimics bacon. I decided to make this completely dairy free by using nutritional yeast, (It tastes similar to parmesan cheese.) but you could also just use parmesan. If you wanted to add more protein, chicken also goes really well with this.

Ingredients

3/4 cup peas

Squeeze of 1/3 a lemon

1 tbsp pine nuts

12 basil leaves

1 handful of parsley (my hands are pretty small)

1 clove of garlic (peeled)

1 tbsp of nutritional yeast or parmesan cheese

1 tbsp olive oil

1.5 zucchinis (spiralized)

3-4 chopped up slices of deli ham

6 sliced kalamata olives

Extra nutritional yeast/parmesan to top

Directions

1: Wash all your herbs and zuchinni, then spiralize your zucchini, and slice your ham and olives.

2: Put the first 8 ingredients in the food processor and mix until well combined. You may need to scrape down the sides of the food processor every so often, and add more olive oil if it isn’t creamy enough.

3: Heat a pan up over medium/medium-high heat with a drizzle of olive oil (about a tbsp) then add in your ham. Next add in your zucchini, be sure you are occasionally mixing everything around. Add in your olives about a minute after you put your zucchini in. Season with a pinch of salt and pepper. Once your zucchini has shrunk in size significantly, and looks cooked through, turn off the heat.(About 5 minutes) If there is a lot of water in your pan from the zucchini, just drain it out in a strainer over the sink.

4: Next, mix in you pesto until it is coating all the zoodles.

5: Top with extra parmesan/nutritional yeast/salt/pepper, and enjoy!