Tomato Basil Zucchini Pasta with Goat Cheese and Asparagus
Try this Tomato Basil Zucchini Pasta with Goat Cheese and Asparagus recipe, or contribute your own.
Try this Tomato Basil Zucchini Pasta with Goat Cheese and Asparagus recipe, or contribute your own.
- Carbohydrate 233.6012 g
- Cholesterol 0 mg
- Fat 10.8858 g
- Fiber 70.3639988851547 g
- Protein 29.1676 g
- Saturated Fat 1.467868 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Serving (2635g)
- Sodium 105.224786458333 mg
- Sugar 163.237201114845 g
- Trans Fat 4.113173 g
- Calories 766 calories
Step-by-step
- Place a large skillet over medium heat and add in the olive oil. Once oil heats, add in the garlic and onions and cook for 2-3 minutes or until onions start to soften and become translucent.
- Add in the tomatoes and season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat and simmer for 20-25 minutes.
- While sauce cooks, spiralize the zucchinis and shave the asparagus by peeling it into strips with a vegetable peeler. Keep the asparagus tips for future use and toss the remaining asparagus stalks. You can also include the asparagus tips, if you’d like, but I didn’t.
- Once sauce is done, place another large skillet over medium-high heat and once heated, add in the zucchini noodles and asparagus. Let cook for 2-3 minutes or until al dente.
- While zucchini cooks, add in the basil to the tomato sauce and stir for 1 minute. Then, remove from heat and stir in the goat cheese.
- When noodles are done, add to the pan with the sauce and toss to combine (alternately, you can combine both in a large mixing bowl and toss that way, if you don’t have a wide enough skillet to accommodate the noodles.)
- Divide the pasta mixture into bowls, top with remaining goat cheese and garnish with extra basil and red pepper flakes.
Standard ingredient lists provide exact weights and measures, but they rarely indicate how thermal dynamics dictate the sequencing of a vegetable-forward dish where moisture management is the primary culinary challenge. Raw zucchini contains roughly ninety-five percent water by weight, meaning that without precise attention to heat and timing, spiralized squash releases its liquid too quickly and transforms a cohesive sauce into a watery pool. Professional kitchens avoid this structural failure by treating vegetable noodles with the same aggressive, high-heat speed reserved for delicate proteins, ensuring that residual heat cooks the strands precisely to an al dente bite without breaking down their structural integrity.
- Simmer the canned tomato base for a full twenty minutes to concentrate the natural glutamates and evaporate excess canning liquid before adding the dairy.
- Shave the asparagus stalks into ribbons using a standard vegetable peeler, reserving the dense core fibers for vegetable stock if desired.
- Cook the zucchini strands in a separate skillet over medium-high heat for no longer than one hundred eighty seconds to prevent moisture release.
- Fold the soft goat cheese into the tomato sauce off the residual burner heat to maintain a smooth emulsion rather than letting the dairy curdle.
- Serve the assembled plates immediately with a scattering of crushed red pepper flakes to balance the rich tang of the cheese.
Balancing fresh produce with preserved tomato solids creates a bright seasonal profile rooted in Mediterranean pantry traditions. Executing these steps in parallel keeps textures distinct and flavors sharp from the first toss to the final garnish.
