It’s a summer squash season! I love eating zucchini noodles. One day I thought I would make pesto out of Japanese herb shiso.
Shiso is like Japanese mint and has a distinct smell and taste. I love the smell and the taste so I always keep some at home when it is available at farmers markets (in summer).
The shiso I am using today has two color in its leaves. The front of the leaves is green and the back of the leaves is purple. Usually, you’ll find green shiso leaves at Japanese and other Asian supermarkets.
I’m using black garlic today because I didn’t want to overpower shiso flavor with garlic. Black garlic is fermented and has a sweet taste. It has a strong smell but it isn’t garlicy smell. If you can’t find it, you can use regular garlic.
This is a simple quick dish to make. The shorter version of the recipe and the list of ingredients are available at the bottom of this blog.
Let’s begin!
- Peel the skin of a zucchini and spiralize it. Save the core and the end (white part only).
2. Sprinkle salt on zucchini and lightly massage. Set aside for a few minutes.
3. Gently squeeze water out of zucchini. Save the water.
4. Blend the sauce ingredients and add zucchini water just enough to blend.
5. Mix the sauce and zucchini noodles until the noodles are well coated with the sauce.
It’s creamy yet very refreshing. In my opinion, it tastes better if you put lots of shiso in the sauce.
This sauce is also good for dipping vegetables or using as a spread.
I hope you give it a try when you can get fresh shiso.
- Peel the skin of a zucchini and spiralize it. Save the core and the end (white part only).
- Sprinkle salt on zucchini and lightly massage. Set aside for a few minutes.
- Gently squeeze water out of zucchini. Save the water.
- Blend the sauce ingredients and add zucchini water just enough to blend.
- Mix the sauce and zucchini noodles until the noodles are well coated with the sauce.
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