Top 5 Tips & Tricks for Cooking with Spiralisers

If you could continuously spiralize a vegetable, it would yield one extremely long noodle. However, the blades jamming and the uneven shapes of the vegetable prevent this – it slices while spiralizing. Even so, you’ll still get extremely long noodles, and that’s a little tough to serve and portion.

Just take a scissor when you’re done spiralizing the vegetable and cut the noodles before cooking or dressing them. You can go inch by inch or just grab a bunch of noodles and roughly snip. Either way, you’ll get regular-sized noodles that are easier to divide onto plates and eat.

2. Avoid a Runny Pasta Sauce

Vegetables are comprised partly of water. Thus, when you mix the vegetable in with a sauce and add heat, the water “seeps” out of the vegetable and into the sauce.

Pat down the vegetables with a paper towel after spiralizing them and before cooking- especially with cucumbers. This helps take away any moisture that is on the “skin” of the vegetable’s insides.

Try cooking the noodles ahead of time in a separate skillet. Take the noodles out with a slotted spoon, pat dry, and set aside for when you’re ready to add them to the sauce.

3. You Don't Always Need to Cook the Noodles

To truly enjoy the benefits of spiralized cooking, don’t always opt to cook the noodles. One of the best things about spiralizing is that it’s quick and easy. You now know that you can get a bowl of vegetable noodles in 30 seconds. Why add a few more minutes to cook them? Skip that step and just dress the noodles with the sauce or dressing right away!

Raw noodles are crunchy, so simply pour a warmed sauce on top and the noodles will slightly heat and soften. It’s definitely a different texture, but can be more refreshing. Creamy avocado sauces also pair well with raw noodles and won’t result in any watery sauces.

4. Always Pat Dry Cucumber Noodles

Cucumbers are made up of over 95% water. That’s a lot of water! When you spiralize a cucumber, always remember to pat dry with paper towels. Lay the noodles down on two layers of paper towel, cover with two more layers, and gently lean in and absorb the moisture. You might want to do this twice!

5. How to Yield More Noodles

You’ve probably noticed by now that the spiraliser slices the vegetable into half moons, while making the noodles. This happens mostly when the vegetable moves off center. To avoid this, reposition the vegetable so that the cylindrical blade keeps centered. You can also flip the vegetable around and center the other end on the blade.

If you have a heaping pile of half moons, don’t throw them out. Keep them and make a pasta salad – their little shapes goes well with salad dressing.

Spiralising small vegetables will not only make smaller noodles, it will yield less of them. This applies for every blade. It will be hard to use Blade B with a small zucchini, it will yield mostly half moons.

Aim to use medium to large vegetables.