These courgette pasta are always creamy but never greasy. Though you cannot see, a whole courgette is transformed into a delicious pasta sauce.
Courgette is a wonderful vegetable. Simply sauté or grill with cheese, thinly slice into a savoury pancake, Whole Roasted with Lentils and Spinach, or turn it into a Moroccan mezze like Courgette and Egg Salad with Cumin.
When you grate a whole courgette, it turns to a small courgette mountain. Yet, after heating, the water evaporates and it quickly shrinks a lot. I like to cook it until slightly burnt, then mix it with mushrooms, garlic, milk, butter, and a lot of cheese. It’s a thicker version of white sauce without adding cream.
Creamy Courgette Pasta Recipe
This recipe proves that courgette can be turned into a great pasta sauce! And remember to add enough Parmesan cheese onto it.
Ingredients
Serves 2
- 160 g spaghetti
- 1 courgette (280 g)
- 2 mushrooms, sliced
- ½ onion, sliced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 120 ml full-fat milk
- 3-4 tbsp pasta cooking water
- 10 g butter
- 30 g freshly grated Parmesan cheese
- basil
- salt and pepper
- olive oil
How to Make
- Grate the whole courgette using the coarse side of a box grater.
- Cook pasta in salted water as per packet’s instructions. (like 1 tbsp salt in 1 L water)
- Heat some olive oil in a pan, cook the onions and courgette with a generous pinch of salt, until the courgette’s water has evaporated.
- Make some space in the pan, add garlic and cook until it turns pale-golden. Then add mushrooms and season with a pinch of salt and pepper. Everything stir well.
- Add milk, pasta cooking water, butter and most of the Parmesan cheese(save some for garnish).
- Tip in the cooked pasta and give everything a quick stir. Garnish with basil and the remaining Parmesan cheese. Freshly crack over some black pepper and serve.
Alternative Recipes
Courgette and Mushroom Pasta in Cream Sauce
If I have heavy cream on hand, I’d use it instead of full-fat milk since heavy cream is way more fatty — more fat, more rich flavour. In that case, the cooking method would be similar as above, yet cheese can be skimped in my opinion. Many people still love both heavily on a plate, isn’t it?
Lemony Mushroom Cream Sauce Linguine
Most often, I like to use loads of mushrooms that a 28cm pan is fully covered with veggies, to boost umami and use less pasta, like the picture above. In that I used crème fraîche instead of heavy cream or milk. Crème fraîche has culture added so it’s slightly sour, I enjoy adding more lemons to beautifully balance the fatty rich cream flavour.
