Healthy, Colorful, Fresh Vegetable "Ramen" - Gluten-Free

2 sm.-med. zucchini

1 med.-lg. sweet potato

1 med. onion

~ or a bunch of green onions

a handful of fresh spinach

3 lg. cloves of garlic

1" cube of fresh (frozen) ginger

1-2T toasted (dark) sesame oil

2t sugar
½-1T sea salt
1T chili paste

2T lemon juice

⅓c peanut butter
2T tahini paste - optional

2T crushed toasted sesame seeds

~ plus more for garnish

This is my modification of a recipe I saw on Naturally Danny Seo, on NBC's Saturday morning E/I  (educational/informational) programming.  There are some wonderful shows on Saturday mornings these days!

Using your spiralizer. . .you do have one, right?  If not, stop reading and go, right now, to your local kitchen store (you do have one, right?) and buy one.  You'll be glad you did!  I'm not a fan of single-purpose gadgets, but since having mine, after the first time I used it I knew I'd never be without one!  It seems the general consensus is that the Paderno is the best *  This price is excellent! 

I'm always amazed at how changing the texture of food makes it so much more dimensional, in every way!  Once your zucchini and sweet potato are spiralized into long cooked-spaghetti-type strands you'll probably need to cut them up a bit to make them easier to eat.  Set them aside for now.  My dogs are big vegetable eaters, so they already had one zucchini "funky mushroom" as well as the one from the sweet potato, before I took this photo.  😁

Put the rough-chopped spinach and sliced onion into a 5qt. pot along with 6 cups of cold, fresh water, and bring to a simmer.  Add spiralized vegetables and continue to cook another 5-10 minutes on low heat.  Using a colander, remove the vegetables out of the pot, into a large glass bowl.

Finely chop the garlic and ginger and put that group of ingredients into the hot cooking liquid, stirring well.  If you want to keep the seeds out of the chili paste, it can be measured into a strainer then put in the hot liquid and stirred a while.  The seeds and pulp can be easily discarded.  Bring to a quick boil, then simmer 5 minutes.   Take off heat, let stand covered another 5 minutes before serving.


Any leftovers can be gently reheated for several days.  In fairness to packaged ramen, this tastes very different, but is far healthier.  Basically it's a Thai-type vegetable soup. . .Lin