This simple vegan pasta dish makes courgette (zucchini) the star of the show, and is perfect for either a hot dinner or a cold lunch dish. It takes hardly any time to cook once you’ve grated all the courgettes! This’ll serve 4 hungry people or 6 less hungry people.
The courgette is quickly melted down in olive oil and tossed into pasta shapes alongside spinach, chilli and pine nuts. The pine nuts add a nice savoury bite which will satisfy any meat eaters, while the chilli and lemon soften the earthiness of the spinach.
You could replace the courgette with any other squash, like pumpkin or butternut squash, so this is great from summer into autumn and winter. You could also use basically any pasta shape for this. We’ve used casarecce here but would normally use penne or fusilli.
Enjoy!
~Dom Eats!
Courgette and Pine Nut Pasta
Ingredients
- 3 Courgettes medium-large, approx 850g
- 500 g Pasta
- 2 Chillis red
- 150 g Spinach fresh or frozen
- 50 g Pine Nuts toasted
- 4 tbsp Olive Oil
- 2 cloves Garlic
- 1 tsp Oregano
- 1 tsp Salt
- 1 tsp Black Pepper
- 1 Lemon juice and zest
Instructions
- Grate the courgette using a box grater or food processor.
- Add olive oil to a large pan and over a low-medium heat cook down the courgette until very soft, approximately 10-12 minutes. Most but not all of the liquid should have evaporated. Meanwhile start cooking the pasta.
- Add spinach, chopped chillis, garlic, oregano, lemon zest, salt and pepper, and continue to cook until spinach has wilted. (If you use frozen spinach it doesn’t matter if you add straight to the pan or defrost it first).
- Stir through the lemon juice and toasted pine nuts, and toss together with the pasta.
