parmesan zucchini noodles with olive oil and lemon

Easy and delicious raw zucchini noodles salad with fresh Italian flavor: Parmesan, lemon, toasted walnuts and olive oil. 

Most summer squash, like zucchini, are tender and mild and when really fresh they don’t even need to be cooked. This healthy low-carb recipe is as minimalistic as it gets — raw zucchini noodles combined with olive oil, lemon, Parmesan and chopped walnuts for a toasty crunch.

Zucchini can be can be prepared in all kinds of ways: Shaved, shredded or just thinly sliced and tossed in whatever sauce or salad dressing you like. But have you ever tried making zucchini noodles?

Zucchini noodles (or “zoodles”) are a popular stand-in for pasta in gluten-free recipes. They have a mild taste and naturally al dente texture, especially when they’re uncooked.

You can briefly cook zucchini noodles, add sauce and dig in with a fork. It’s almost like digging into a bowl of pasta. Or save the cooking step and make this recipe. Enjoy them plain and simple, no cooking required.

How to make zucchini noodles:

There’s a no shortage of tools and gadgets out there that will make zucchini into spaghetti-like strands, matchsticks or otherwise noodle-shaped cuts that you’ll want for this recipe. Here are the ones I recommend:

Spiralizer: Using this tool definitely produces the best noodle shapes and it does the job quickly – just position the zucchini on the holder (or other firm vegetable) and spin the handle. I like this one — it’s folds away for storage and has suction cups to hold it securely on a work surface.

Mandoline: The interchangeable blades on a a mandoline allow you to not only make noodles, but wide ribbons as thin or thick as you prefer.

Julienne peeler: A julienne peeler is the most inexpensive and surprisingly effective tool on the list — a serrated, handheld peeler easily turns a zucchini into matchsticks, but requires just a little more time than the tools listed above.

A vegetable peeler and a chef’s knife: An every day vegetable peeler and a sharp chef’s knife is the most basic, old-school way to make matchsticks. Just peel thick slices, stack them and slice with the knife into matchsticks. While they’re not exactly noodles, zucchini cut into matchsticks makes a perfect shape to use in this recipe.

• Keep in mind that if you are using a spiralizer to make zucchini noodles, the strands will be very long.  Trim them into manageable lengths with kitchen scissors before serving.
• Zucchini noodles keep fresh for days (without sauce or seasoning). A great make-ahead tip is to form the noodles and keep them in a covered container until you need them.
• Zucchini starts releasing water (and gets soggy) as soon as you add salt and acid, so toss the noodles just before serving.

Pin this recipe for later: