A Trendy New Toy

In the summer months, the more meals I eat without a hot stove or oven, the better. And as I searched online for recipes for fresh, cold dishes, there was one item that popped up in quite a few recipes: a spiralizer.

A spiralizer, as it turns out, is a tool that turns vegetables into noodles. In less than a minute, a full zucchini is reduced to a long, spaghetti-like thread. The same goes for potatoes, beets, carrots, and butternut squash. The machine, which comes in handheld and stand forms, has special blades that slices veggies into thin noodles.

After whipping up a raw zucchini pasta using a vegetable peeler—which was tasty but boring—I decided to step it up and buy a stand spiralizer.

And then the fun began.

I cut the tips off a zucchini and stuck one end into a tiny hole near the blade. Tiny spikes at the handle held the other end of the veggie. Then I began to crank the handle and, voilà, noodles in an instant. Later, ribboned potatoes became curly fries. Carrot twists were tossed in a salad.

A Healthy, Vegetarian Recipe

With the spiralizer, I started to go through more recipes, including this raw pasta with marinara recipe from Lindsay S. Nixon. She is the author of four cookbooks and the popular blog Happy Herbivore. The recipe, which had only a handful of ingredients, took less than five minutes to make. It’s a recipe Nixon created years ago while completing an all-raw challenge.

“I don't keep a raw diet (I find I feel my best with cooked plant foods and lots of starch),” Nixon said when I asked her about her creation. “But raw dishes like zucchini noodles are a great way to lighten the calorie load, add more veggies to your diet, or keep things cool in the summer. I also sometimes make my Cheater pad thai with zucchini or summer-squash noodles.”

Tiny Art for Tiny Teeth to Gobble Up

The curly tendrils from each run of the spiralizer look like tiny works of art. So let’s take the fun one step further. A spiralizer practically screams: play with me!

To make this edible flower, you need a zucchini, a carrot, and a golden beet. The long and pliable zucchini ribbon became the stem and leaves. The beet—rigid and broken into half-moons—transformed into petals. And tight coils of carrot were fashioned into the pistil.

The edible flower is a fun way for kids—and adults—to eat more vegetables. And the possibilities are as endless as your ability to crank out spiralized veggies. Those same golden beets can also be turned into tumbling blond curls for a smiley face. A pile of zucchini could become a cloud in the sky. When halved, red beet spirals turn into sailboats.

Photos and video footage by Katie Cortese, Groupon