Zoodle Pad Thai Salad

Zoodle Pad Thai Salad is a refreshing low carb version of the beloved Thai street food, made with spiralized zucchini.

I’m a huge pad Thai fan, I always order it in Thai restaurants and I’ve made it myself lots of times.  I decided to try out my new Spiralizer and create a variation of the dish by replacing the traditional rice noodles with ‘zoodles’.  I just loved the result, and to be honest I couldn’t really tell much difference between the zucchini and the noodles, this version tasted  exactly like my favorite pad Thai.

I resisted getting a spiralizer for quite some time, but I think all this super hot weather made the thought of veggie noodles sound really enticing.  It took me just about a minute to get a big pile of bouncy ‘zoodles’ and to fall in love with my new kitchen toy.  The zoodles were surprisingly long and resilient —  I think I expected that they’d be watery and so delicate they’d fall apart, but it’s just the opposite, they look and behave just like regular noodles!

We ate this as a cold salad, and also as a hot dish and loved it both ways, the zoodles hold up well in either case.  A refreshing combination of lime, ginger, garlic and cilantro, along with fish sauce and soy sauce forms the pad Thai flavor base.  Mine gets a dose of protein from the tofu, and a great crunch from bean sprouts, water chestnuts, and roasted peanuts.

See my Spicy Pad Thai for a classic recipe that uses rice noodles, and my Pad Thai recipe for one that includes chicken.  They’re all great in their own way.

notes:

• I just barely heated the zucchini noodles through in the wok before taking it off the heat.  They can wilt quickly, and I want to retain a little bit of their texture.
• Fish sauce is a fermented sauce that really gives pad Thai its authentic umami flavor, you’ll find it in the Asian or International section of your store.   For a vegan version, use soy sauce.

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Used in this post…(the photos are clickable)