Spaghetti with Colorful Zucchini and Parmesan

Name: Spaghetti with Zucchini and Parmesan
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 30 min
Cuisine: Italian cuisine
Ingredients: Spaghetti 200 g; Water for cooking the pasta 2 l; Salt for cooking the pasta 14 g (7 g per 1 l of water); Zucchini 1; Hot pepper 1; Garlic 2-3 cloves (plus 1 more for the cheese mixture, if you like); Green basil 2-3 sprigs; Hard cheese (Parmesan, Pecorino) 50 g; Cherry tomatoes 5-6; Olive oil 3-4 tbsp; Lemon 1 tsp zest and 1 tbsp juice; Salt, black pepper, dried Mediterranean herbs to taste; Finely chopped herbs optional, for serving

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30 mins

When summer arrives and young vegetables are in abundance, pasta with zucchini is one of the simplest dishes for a good breakfast. Young zucchini of any kind are perfect for it, and they are always available at just the right ripeness. The vegetable sauce of coarsely cut zucchini is made in olive oil flavored with garlic and hot pepper.

Italy has plenty of pasta dishes with all sorts of vegetables, coarsely cut or chopped. Quite often, and no wonder, such dishes have their own name and even a fairly fixed recipe. For example, spaghetti alla Nerano is a traditional recipe from Campania, a masterpiece of Neapolitan cuisine. The vegetable sauce is made from zucchini fried in olive oil and is served with Provolone del Monaco cheese, Parmesan and basil.

Pasta is considered Italy’s national treasure. One of the most common kinds is spaghetti. Usually spaghetti are long strands of dough with a round cross-section. Depending on thickness, they may be called spaghettini (thin), spaghettoni (thick) or capellini (spaghetti as thin as a hair). The simplest dish made from this pasta is spaghetti with cheese. And the best known, perhaps, is pasta carbonara, with eggs and fried pancetta or guanciale.

Spaghetti is just dough, so it is served with sauces, which in turn give the pasta its particular taste. One of the most revered pasta sauces is pesto, a green and fragrant sauce based on basil, Pecorino and garlic, blended with olive oil and pine nuts.

Let’s make pasta with vegetables for breakfast, a dish that does not take much time or effort. In season, all the vegetables are usually in the fridge or in the garden. If you like, you can vary the vegetables for the sauce to suit your taste or whatever you have on hand. The dish turns out tasty, filling and very fragrant. With fried onion and herbs, it is also pasta with zucchini.

Ingredients

2 servings

Spaghetti 200 g
Water for cooking the pasta 2 l
Salt for cooking the pasta 14 g (7 g per 1 l of water)
Zucchini 1
Hot pepper 1
Garlic 2-3 cloves (plus 1 more for the cheese mixture, if you like)
Green basil 2-3 sprigs
Hard cheese (Parmesan, Pecorino) 50 g
Cherry tomatoes 5-6
Olive oil 3-4 tbsp
Lemon 1 tsp zest and 1 tbsp juice
Salt, black pepper, dried Mediterranean herbs to taste
Finely chopped herbs optional, for serving

Step-by-step recipe

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Vegetable sauce

By and large, pasta with vegetables can be made with other pasta too. But as a rule, many kinds of pasta are designed specifically to hold sauces on their surface. Spaghetti, or their variations, are better suited to being tossed with various additions made of large pieces. So which pasta to use is up to you.

For this dish you need a young zucchini of medium size, with a smooth, shiny skin and undeveloped seeds. If you can use zucchini in different colors, the pasta with vegetables will look much more attractive. For aroma it is worth adding pepper, preferably hot, but sweet bell pepper will do too.

Flavor the oil with garlic: heat the olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat and fry the peeled garlic cloves, crushed with the flat of a knife blade. Fry the garlic only until lightly golden, no more, so that it does not give the dish a harsh aftertaste. The garlic’s job is to flavor the olive oil, and then it should be thrown away.

Remove the seeds from the hot pepper pod and carefully cut out the white inner membranes, cut it into small pieces and fry in the flavored olive oil for 1 min.
The seeds and membranes contain the lion’s share of capsaicin, which causes the hot taste. The walls of a hot pepper pod have a rather neutral or mildly hot taste, but at the same time a strong aroma.
Fry the zucchini together with the pepper in oil over medium heat until soft. First cut the zucchini into rounds 5-6 mm thick and halve them again, so you get half-rounds. If the zucchini are large in diameter, you can cut them into quarters. There is no need to cover the pan with a lid, but stir the vegetables for even frying.
Season the vegetables when the zucchini are very soft but still hold their shape: add salt and pepper and 1-2 pinches of dried fragrant herbs typical of the Mediterranean region: oregano, basil, savory and so on. Turn off the heat under the pan, cover it with a lid and leave the fried vegetables to cool a little. Zest the lemon to get 1 tsp of zest (2 g) and chop it finely. Add the zest and 1 tbsp of lemon juice to the fried vegetables.

Cheese mixture

Make the cheese mixture: pull all the leaves off the basil sprigs, put them in a chopper and add grated cheese, Pecorino or Parmesan. A softer Emmental will do just fine too. If you like, you can add 1 clove of garlic. Chop all the ingredients. You should get an almost dry cheese mixture of a pleasant emerald color.

Spaghetti

Cook the spaghetti: in a pot over high heat bring 2 l of water with 14 g of salt (7 g per 1 l of water) to a boil and add the pasta. The cooking time is given on the package and you should not change it. The pasta maker guarantees an al dente result, provided it is real pasta and not a mix of flour of unknown origin.
Drain the cooked spaghetti in a colander and toss with the vegetables. Add the halved cherry tomatoes and the cheese mixture with basil. Mix the spaghetti well so that all the vegetables are evenly distributed.

Serving

Divide the pasta with vegetables among plates. If you like, sprinkle with a pinch of ground black pepper, which will bring out the flavor of the vegetables. I think finely chopped herbs will not be out of place either.
Serve the pasta with vegetables right away, while it is hot. A great and tasty breakfast is guaranteed.

Calories and macros

710 kcal

Serving ≈ 420 g

Protein22 g12% of kcal
Fat33 g43% of kcal
Carbs77 g45% of kcal

100 g171 kcalProtein 5.2 gFat 8 gCarbs 18.6 g

Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.

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