Roasted-zucchini pasta with capers

A veg-forward dish for this garden bad boy.

If you’re still gardening here in late summer, chances are you’re up to your ears in zucchini. My husband and I have a running joke about this prolific vegetable, as it mutates into bat-sized monsters the minute you turn your back. His mother once broke down in tears after processing a mound of the squashes, only to have his father show up with a fresh bag. “Just make zucchini bread,” he assured her. She replied: “Do you know how little zucchini is actually in zucchini bread?”

My solution to the overabundance problem plaguing the zucchini is to roast it.

From there, you can add it to anything, and my favorite ‘anything’ is a light summer pasta. This beauty is all salt and subtlety, with the caramelized zucchini perked up by a splash of bright lemon and fresh red onion. Capers lend a satisfying brine. Walnuts and cheese add heartiness.

As a bonus, capers and red onion are both excellent sources of quercetin, a nutrient shown to alleviate allergic-immune responses. So you can enjoy a tasty dish and reap the benefit of its food-medicine properties all in one go!

Roasted-zucchini pasta with capers

Ingredients for the roasted zucchini

• 1 medium-sized zucchini squash, cut into equal-sized, chunky quarters

• Sprig of chopped, fresh rosemary

• 6-7 peeled garlic cloves

• A tablespoon dried herbs de Provence

• 250 ml or 1/8 cup extra-virgin olive oil, or more to coat the squash

For the pasta

• Roasted zucchini

• 450 g or 1/2 pound of rotini pasta, sourdough-style if you can get it, see below

• Half a medium-sized red onion, sliced very thinly

• 50 g or 1/4 cup of salt-packed capers

• 100 g or 1/2 cup brine-soaked-and-dried walnuts, chopped, or toasted, chopped walnuts

• Olive oil to coat the pasta and finish the dish

• 50 g or 1/4 cup of shredded parmesan or mozzarella cheese, or a combination

• Juice and zest of half a lemon

Steps

1. First, let’s deal with those bad-boy zucchinis. Pre-heat the oven to 225°C or 425°F. Load the cut quarters and garlic into a bowl and toss them with the oil and herbs. Then spread them across two parchment-lined baking sheets. Place each sheet on an oven rack and set the timer for 8 minutes.

2. When the timer goes off, flip the squash, turning them over as you can, but don’t get too obsessive about it; it’s OK if they’re not all flipped. Switch the trays to the opposite racks and reset the timer for another 8 minutes. This helps ensure even roasting. 

3. While the zucchini is roasting, start a pot of water to boil for the pasta and slice the red onions. A word about the sourdough pasta I linked to above: That’s to honor the Nourishing Traditions recommendation to soak all grains before eating them, for better digestibility and nutrient bioavailability. (That book link takes you to Bookshop.org. If you purchase the book, I might earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.) Boil the pasta to al dente, drain, toss with a splash of oil, and set aside.

4. If you can’t manage the brine-soak-and-dry method on the walnuts, then toast them lightly in a cast-iron skillet over medium heat. Juice and zest the lemon.

5. When the timer goes off again, remove the squash from the oven and let it cool for a few minutes.

6. Toss all ingredients together in a large serving bowl, adding olive oil and salt and pepper to your liking. Serve at once, at room temperature.

Variations and Notes

You can eat this as a main dish or present it as a side-dish along with your meat. I’m not a vegetarian, but I used to be, so I’ve learned to appreciate a vegetable-forward dish. I find that it’s nice, especially in summer, to intersperse my healthy meat-eating with the occasional vegetarian fare.

If red onions aren’t your thing, omit them; the dish survives without them.

Are whole garlic cloves tough to eat? Not at all. Roasting them like this softens and caramelizes them to a lovely, smoky flavor.

I’ve made this with parmesan, with mozzarella, and with the two combined, and they’re all delicious. The mozzarella is less salty, but you can increase the capers if you’re missing that. The parmesan is drier, so in that case add more oil.

While in the States especially it’s common to use jarred capers, this dish will taste infinitely better if you get the salt-packed kind (another commission link if you buy it). Seriously, once I discovered salt-packed capers, it was a game-changer for me. They’re larger, still retain their mouthfeel of flower buds in the most delicious sense, and are more fresh-and-salty than pickled.

For paying subscribers, here’s a handy-dandy, printable PDF of this recipe, which you can also find anytime in the recipe archive.