Origin Story
A couple of years ago, I was in Dollarama, checking out the kitchen utensils, and I came across a spiralizer. Into the basket it went. I wanted to see what all of the fuss was about with spiralized veggies. Pretend pasta? Gotta taste this for myself! I grabbed a couple of other things, as one does at a dollar store and headed to the check out. I remember I didn’t have any cash but I can’t quite remember why I couldn’t use a card. Needless to say, I still don’t have that particular spiralizer. HOWEVER, I have recently become the proud owner of a box of attachments for my stand mixer – including a peeler and spiralizer (thanks, Ian)! And so, Linguini Carbonara with Asparagus and Zoodles was born.
Now that all is said and done, I still want to try the Dollarama spiralizer so I can recommend it to you guys.. anyone have it? What other types of spiralizers do you all have? I’m literally going to just leave this link here for you all to look at the different types you can get from Amazon.
Methods to my Madness
I’m not going to lie. I only made the Linguini Carbonara with Asparagus and Zoodles once. This doesn’t mean that this isn’t a thoroughly thought out recipe that I just whipped together, not in the least! I spent quite a bit of time thinking of, writing and rewriting ingredients and methods. From start to finish, with prep, cook time, plating for photos and plating to eat, this took about an hour – and that was figuring everything out along the way and going slowly step by step.. so if you leave yourself an hour for prep, cooking and getting everyone to the table you should be good to go! Just make sure you get everything in one trip to the store.
A couple of Tips
I did some extensive research (in one Italian cookbook) on what makes something a carbonara. So when you read the part in the directions about the egg and are low key freaking out cause you think you’re gonna eat a raw egg, don’t. Cause you aren’t.
I definitely recommend serving this Linguini Carbonara with Asparagus and Zoodles with fresh ground pepper and parmesan cheese (cheese goes without saying). Feel free not to use zoodles or linguini and double up on the one you do use. I mean, really, too much pasta is never a bad thing, am I right? On that note, I’m really bad at knowing how much pasta to boil and I always make way too much. For this dish, I used my thumb and index finger to measure the linguini – using about a 1 inch diameter’s width of it. I hope that helps!
One last thing, I took a cooking course in Florence this past winter and amongst everything I learned (there was a lot), I have especially taken to heart that you must salt your water when you’re making pasta. And by salt the water, I mean heavily salt the water! I totally used to just add a little bit to speed up the boiling process, but now I salt heavily and it makes the pasta taste just that much better.
Hey – before you go, make sure you also sign up for The Fancy Napkins Newsletter so you don’t miss out on any new recipes! I will also send you secret stuff that doesn’t get posted online so you can be successful in the kitchen!
Happy cooking!
Linguini Carbonara with Asparagus and Zoodles
Ingredients
- Linguini about an inch+ diameter
- 450 g ground turkey
- 1/4 tsp each salt pepper
- 1/2 tsp dried oregano
- 2 medium zucchini
- 4 strips bacon chopped roughly
- 2 gloves garlic minced
- 1/3 cup sundried tomatoes
- 1 cup asparagus chopped (about 10 stalks)
- 1 cup pasta water
- 1 egg
Instructions
- Salt and boil water*
- In a medium frying pan, cook ground turkey, adding salt, pepper and oregano
- While turkey is cooking, chop asparagus and spiralize zucchini. Set aside
- Chop bacon, roughly
- Once turkey is cooked, set aside and using a large saute pan (or just any big pan you have that will fit all of this), cook the bacon
- *Now add linguine to boiling water and cook according to the directions on the package
- Add garlic, asparagus and sundried tomatoes to the bacon pan. Stir
- After a few minutes, add spiralized zucchini
- Cook covered for five minutes before adding the cooked turkey
- Stir, and let the veggies continue to cook for about five more minutes
- Meanwhile, take 1 cup boiling pasta water into a glass measuring cup (or similar) and crack egg in, stirring vigorously
- Pour egg water into frying pan, stirring constantly
- By now, the linguine should be ready. Drain and add the noddles to the frying pan
- Give it a good stir!
- Simmer for about 5 to 10 minutes
- Add pepper and parmesan cheese to taste
- Enjoy!
What do you mean when you say chop bacon roughly??
Hi Laura! Chop the bacon into about 1 cm wide pieces. When I say roughly, it’s mostly because bacon doesn’t cut very ‘pretty’ so just don’t worry about what it looks like. Just chop it up and call it a day!
Thanks!
Tried this last night, for an impromptu dinner with friends. Made it exactly as suggested. IT WAS DELICIOUS!!!!