Zucchini Pasta + Creamy Avocado-Cucumber Sauce

Happy Monday! Cheers to another refreshing raw recipe for our collection. These raw pasta dishes are always the ones that leave me feeling so refreshed and at my best. They are perfect for the warmer spring and summer months ahead. So far we have Creamy Zucchini Pesto with 'Noodles', Spicy Kale Pesto with Zucchini Noodles, 'Raw'sta Pasta with a marina'raw' sauce and now this simple zucchini pasta with a creamy avocado cucumber sauce. This is a nice addition, and one I think you will enjoy time and time again. 

I have adapted my recipe from this one from Feasting at Home. I have added a few extra goodies like tomatoes and jalapenos as well as changing up the puree a bit. I love the combination of avocado and cucumber. The cucumber adds a wonderful refreshing twist that I think you'll just love! This comes from my Avocado and Cucumber Soup recipe that can be used in many ways, ie..soup, guacamole, or sauce. I find the addition of the tomatoes and bits of jalapeno to be delicious and a nice accompaniment to the overall dish. Feel free to keep this simple like the original recipe or use what you have on hand making it your own. I've also seen lots of recipes that just use avocado without any cucumber for the puree and that is great too! Feel free to omit the cucumber in this recipe and add an extra avocado if you like for variations (you may like to add a couple tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil if you do). You can even add some arugula to the puree instead of using basil. Lots of ways to change it up and keep it fresh!

Green and healthy...

Refreshing and light puree...

You can either julienne the zucchini by using a julienne tool or you can spiralize using a spiralizer. Both ways are great. The julienne tool is much smaller and will fit nicely in your utensil drawer. The spiralizer on the other hand is a bit larger and cumbersome, but well worth the space as I do use mine fairly often. 

You could also put this sauce on any pasta of choice. Here I have it with brown rice pasta. But my all time favorite way to eat this is with the zucchini noodles...hands down...so refreshing and perfect! 

Zucchini Pasta + Creamy Avocado-Cucumber Sauce

Ingredients

• 1 large zucchini (1 per person)
• grape, cherry or mini heirloom tomatoes, halved
• jalapeno, thinly sliced and seeds removed (optional)
• arugula
• pea shoots (optional)
• zest of one meyer lemon or regular lemon

Avocado-Cucumber Puree

• 1 medium avocado
• 1 cucumber, peeled and sliced thick
• a few large leaves of basil (optional)
• 1 meyer lemon or regular lemon, juice of
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon white pepper or black pepper to taste
• salt to taste

Prepare your zucchini noodles julienne style or spiralized. Or alternately, cook your pasta of choice, about 8 ounces.

For the puree, place all ingredients into a food processor/blender and process until creamy. Taste for flavor adding anything extra you might like.

Toss zucchini pasta with avocado-cucumber puree and a handful of arugula. Serve with tomatoes, peas shoots, jalapenos, lemon zest, lemon wedges and fresh cracked pepper.

Enjoy!