Zucchini Noodle Review and Sauté

Vegetables can be boring. Recently, we bed in 25 zucchini plants in our “yarden.” As most of you know, we plant so many zucchini because we are a bit obsessed with the delicate blossoms, but we are always looking for new ways to use the abundance of squash that we expect to harvest. You might imagine then my excitement to receive a SuperSwizz stainless steel "spiralizer" from Pure Body Naturals to try.

The SuperSwizz makes thin, spiral strands of veggies which many cooks refer to as "vegetable spaghetti." There are 2 cutting blades which result in two different sized-“noodle” thicknesses. The slicer can be held in one hand while you twirl the vegetables in the other and can be used right- or left-handed. It comes with a “food holder cap” with a spike to hold the vegetables as they get shorter so that your hand does not come in contact with the blades.

I tested the slicer on cucumber, zucchini, carrots and sweet potato. The cucumber is a bit too watery and did not work as well as hoped, the zucchini and carrots worked quite well, but the raw sweet potato was far to firm and kept getting stuck in the blades. The spike in the cap could have been longer, and I ended up using a fork to hold the vegetables to get the last few strands. This gadget would be a fun and safe way for kids to help in the kitchen and might encourage kids to eat more vegetables.

The zucchini spaghetti was a real treat with a nice firm texture that held up well to being tossed with a bit of vinaigrette. We also tried a quick sauté of the zucchini noodles in olive oil with mint and Parmesan.

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1 medium zucchini, “swizzed”
¼ cup fresh mint, finely chopped
grated Parmesan cheese for serving

In a medium pan, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add garlic and cook until fragrant and just starting to brown. Add zucchini noodles to the pan and toss to evenly coat with the garlic oil. Sauté the zucchini until it starts to look translucent, gentling tossing in the pan as it cooks, 2 -3 minutes.

Remove the pan from the heat and toss in the freshly chopped mint. You can use any fresh herbs with or instead of mint if you prefer. Basil, tarragon or parsley would make wonderful additions as well. Serve the zucchini with a smattering of grated Parmesan on top.

The SuperSwizz cyclone slicer is lightweight and easy to clean. It came with a small brush so help make cleaning even easier. The instruction manual states that the gizmo can be placed on the top rack of a dishwasher as well. The small size is advantageous for storage. My one big complaint is that the food holder “cap” is completely separate from the slicer. It would be a huge improvement if the holder snapped or screwed to the unit for storage. I am currently using a piece of electrical tape to keep the cap from getting lost. The “detailed operating instructions” while adequately described how to use the gadget, are less than a full page in length. Rather than leaving the back side of the page blank, recipe recommendations could be added which might help customers new to the concept of cooking with veggie noodles.

While I would recommend this product for its novelty, small size and easy use, its current pricing ($19.95 on Amazon.com) is a bit expensive. With a little more work, vegetable noodles could be achieved with a cheap vegetable peeler and a paring knife. Yet, again there is something to be said for its convenience and utility for use by children (with supervision of course.)

Disclosure:I received the SuperSwizz mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. The resulting review is my own fair and honest opinion.