Creamy Zucchini Pasta—It’s Like Alfredo Sauce, But Slightly More Virtuous
A big bowl of this silky, rich pasta—nope, we don’t mean zoodles! We mean real, carb-o-licious pasta—is really hard to beat. It’s the perfect thing for zucchini season! When the weather is starting to turn and you’re ready for a warming dinner, and at the same time, your (or your neighbor’s) garden boxes are overflowing with too many zucchinis, this creamy zucchini pasta recipe is exactly what you need in your back pocket. We dress up a basic cream sauce with plenty of garlic, Parmesan and fresh basil, making it full of flavors both bright and herbaceous and salty and sharp. If you’ve ever made a cream sauce or alfredo sauce from scratch before, the process for making this will be familiar. And if you’re new to making homemade cream sauce, no worries! It’s not hard to do, and we will walk you through it. For a finger-friendly zuke experience, try our Fried Zucchini!
A Simple Zucchini Pasta With Cream Sauce In Just Seven Ingredients
If you’ve got even the most bare-bones pantry—olive oil, salt, pepper, dried pasta—you’re almost halfway to making this super easy creamy pasta recipe. If you’ve got a generous garden (or a generous neighbor) and have easy access to lots of fresh basil and zucchini, you might even be closer than halfway. In addition to the most basic pantry ingredients, here’s what you’ll need deliciously creamy zucchini pasta:
- Zucchini
- Shallots
- Fresh garlic
- Parmesan
- Basil leaves
- Heavy cream
How To Make Creamy Pasta with Zucchini
Unlike an alfredo sauce, this creamy pasta sauce relies only on heavy cream and a little pasta cooking water to make it creamy and help it cling to the pasta—there’s no butter in sight! If you’ve never used pasta cooking water in a recipe before, welcome to the world of deliciously silky sauces that cling to pasta just like they’re supposed to! The starch that comes out of the pasta while it cooks gives the pasta cooking water magical creamy sauce-making powers, and using it is a classic trick! Don’t forget to salt your pasta water, too—that’ll make the pasta cooking water even more magical. Here’s how to make this lovely pasta dinner:
- Sauté the zucchini, shallots and, after a couple of minutes, the garlic.
- Pour in the heavy cream, basil leaves, salt and pepper.
- Bring the cream sauce to a very gentle simmer—you never want to boil cream—for about 5 minutes.
- Boil the pasta of your choosing—we love to use spaghetti, fusilli or bucatini for this recipe—but don’t forget to save a scoop of the pasta water before you drain it!
- Add the pasta water to the zucchini cream sauce and blend!
- Zucchini cream sauce + parmesan cheese + pasta = dinner is done! Toss it all together, top with more Parm, and eat up!
More Ways To Use Up Extra Zucchini
It can feel overwhelming when all of your zucchini is suddenly ready for harvest at the same time. But trust us, it’s a good problem to have! Here are a few of our favorite ways to use up zucchini:
- Roasted Zucchini with Parmesan
- Lasagna Stuffed Zucchini Boats
- Mediterranean-Style Zucchini Fritters with Tzatziki Dipping Sauce
- Mom's Zucchini Bread Muffins
Tools You’ll Need
Zucchini Bucatini? Zucchini Fettuccine? Zucchini Linguine?
Or all of the above? With a pasta sauce this good, you can’t go wrong. If you make this creamy zucchini pasta recipe, let us know how you like it! Share a photo and tag us on Instagram using @themodernproper and #themodernproper so that we can see your stuff! Happy eating!
