Make Vegetable Noodles with the Veggetti Pro

Turn vegetables into noodles?  Sounds crazy doesn’t it?  Well spiral cutting vegetables into a pasta type substitute is a big hit with folks avoiding gluten, looking to cut their carbs, wanting to reduce calories or even just up the amount of veggies they eat.

When I traveled down to Walmart HQ for the big shareholder’s meeting in June we got to see the Veggetti Pro in action.  This unit is sold at Walmart for just $24.88 which is almost half the price my mom paid for a similar unit at a big store in the mall last  year.

I was offered a chance by Walmart to try out the Veggetti Pro and see how it worked.  I’m always happy to play with new kitchen gadgets, and spiral cutting had come up recently in my TOPS (Take Off Pounds Sensibly) meeting so I accepted.

The Veggetti Pro comes with 3 blades: Thin Spiral, Thick Spiral and Ribbon Cut (like those endless french fry spirals you can buy at the fair).  The blades all fit neatly in the unit (two beneath and one inserted in it ready to cut).  There is a suction cup to keep it securely in place on the counter.  It comes apart for storage and the entire thing comes apart so that it can be cleaned in the dishwasher!

For my experiment I decided to go with the old standby of Zucchini.  I know.  It’s what everyone does.  But there is a reason!  Zucchini makes a good noodle substitute because they are so mildly flavored.  That way they don’t scream “vegetable” when  you eat them, they just seem like a base for your sauce (which is what you want).

I trimmed then ends off my squash to fit it in the Veggetti and started cranking.  It was super easy and very satisfying to see the ribbons spill out of the machine.

Now that I had my veggie noodles I wasn’t sure what to do.  I saw that some folks boiled them, but I think boiled zucchini gets squishy.  One guy I found online steamed his in the microwave.  But the standard procedure seems to be to saute them in a bit of oil in a pan until cooked and then to use as you would regular noodles.

Zucchini has a lot of moisture naturally, so I decided to blot my veggie noodles well with some paper towel before I cooked them.  Next time I may try salting them and letting them stand, then rinsing them well and blotting–kind of like you do with eggplant before making Parmesan.

Then I tossed them in my cast iron skillet with a bit of butter an cooked them on medium high heat for a couple of minutes, using tongs to move and flip them.  They released more liquid during the cooking.  You really can choose how long you want to cook them–they could be eaten raw, or completely cooked and soft. . . I went with a sort of medium cooked but still a bit crunchy.

Add your favorite sauce and cheese, and then serve!

As you can see, more liquid came out of them and mixed with the sauce, but that was fine.  They tasted good–you wouldn’t trick anyone into thinking they were pasta, but they didn’t taste like vegetables either.  They were a nice, filling and bland base that really let the sauce shine.  And they were a whole lot less calories, carbs and gluten than regular pasta!

The Veggetti Pro doesn’t have to be used just for making noodles.  If you were to chop the strings up you’d have a great sized for stirfrys or coleslaw.  The ribbon cutting is perfect for making chips–either out of potatoes or from veggies.  You can even use it to cut some zucchini to dehydrate for low cal chips!

Have you every used a spiral cutter?  What’s your favorite thing to make?

****This is a sponsored post****

Disclosure: As a participant in the Walmart Moms Program, I’ve received product samples and compensation for my time and efforts in creating this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own.