A bright and summery 30-minute zucchini pasta
With lemon, chickpeas + capers ☀️
I gotta admit: for a long time, I was pretty anti-zucchini. I found it to be watery, bland, and unpleasantly textured. I didn’t see how it could even begin to compete with other summer vegetables, like tomatoes or eggplant, which I’ve always found infinitely more exciting.
But last summer, when on a whim I combined basic pan-fried zucchini with a caper relish, I finally understood what zucchini needs to go from blah to wow: to be properly seared, and to be paired with acidic, briny flavors.
You see, zucchini (a.k.a. courgette, for my friends across the pond) becomes quite sweet when cooked, so serving it with something like lemon and capers balances it out.
I decided to turn that zucchini side dish into a complete meal by bulking it up with pasta and chickpeas. If you’re a fan of tangy, briny, herby flavors, you are going to love this saucy lemon zucchini pasta. It’s an easy but impressive weeknight meal you can make in just 30 minutes…
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Yes, some vegetables hit you with zing from the very first bite, but others like to hide their light under a bushel - you really need to coax them into revealing their true glory 😝.
Like you, I thought zucchini was super boring - till one night I needed to whip up a quick meal in minutes and pretty much all I had in the fridge was a left-over length of zucchini. Cut it into thickish slices, then just flash-fried in a wok and served up with a bit of miso and lime. Sweet, crunchy and delightful ☺️.
Zucchini, lemon, capers and chickpeas sound like a terrific combo for pasta, thanks!