Zucchini Noodles with Pesto
Fresh zucchini noodles tossed with basil pesto and cherry tomatoes make a light, healthy meal. Make this recipe for lunch or dinner, or serve it as a side!
Updated by Kathryne Taylor on June 17, 2026
This recipe for zucchini noodles with pesto and cherry tomatoes is so fresh and bright that I just had to try it. I loved it so much that I wish I had ingredients for another batch right now! I found it in Heather Christo’s lovely cookbook, Pure Delicious.
This is a simple summer meal that is bursting with flavor and ready in under thirty minutes. The only cooking involved is briefly toasting the pepitas to bring out their best flavor. Yes, that means that the zucchini is served raw. Give it a try!
“So delicious – everyone in the family loved it, including my picky 9-year-old and skeptical, meat-loving husband.”
Serving Suggestions
This is a very light dish. You can treat it as a main dish by adding your protein of choice—it would go well with grilled options or seared halloumi cheese. Or serve it as a side dish to complement your summertime meals. It would be lovely with grilled corn or grilled pizza!
Storage Tip
If you won’t consume the entire recipe today, store the pesto separately from the remaining ingredients. Otherwise, the zucchini releases too much moisture, and the leftovers get soggy.
Please let me know how your recipe turns out in the comments. I love hearing from you.
Zucchini Noodles with Basil-Pumpkin Seed Pesto
Raw zucchini noodles tossed with basil pesto and cherry tomatoes make a light, healthy meal. Make this recipe for lunch or dinner, or serve it as a side! Recipe yields 4 generous main dish servings.
Ingredients
Basil-pumpkin seed pesto
- 1 garlic clove, roughly chopped
- 2 cups packed fresh basil leaves (arugula works, too)
- ½ cup pepitas (green pumpkin seeds), toasted
- ⅓ cup olive oil
- 2 teaspoons red wine vinegar, to taste (or lemon juice)
- Pinch of red pepper flakes
- Salt, to taste
Zucchini noodles
- 3 large zucchini
- Salt
- 1 pint cherry tomatoes (Heather served her tomatoes whole; I halved mine vertically)
- Fresh basil leaves, for garnishing
Instructions
- To toast the pepitas, pour them into a medium skillet over medium heat. Cook, stirring frequently, until the seeds are fragrant and the pepitas start making little popping noises, about 3 to 5 minutes. Pour them onto a plate to cool.
- To prepare the pesto: In a food processor, combine the garlic, basil, toasted pepitas, olive oil, vinegar and red pepper flakes. Blend until smooth and season with salt, to taste (I added about ½ teaspoon).
- To prepare the noodles: Spiralize the zucchini with a spiralizer, or turn the zucchini into noodles with a julienne peeler, or grate the zucchini the long way on a large box grater. If you’re serving this dish in its entirety right away, toss the zucchini with pesto until well coated, and season with salt (I added another ¼ teaspoon). Otherwise, toss just the amount of zucchini you need now with pesto, and store the rest separately for later.
- Transfer the pesto noodles to a large platter and sprinkle with the cherry tomatoes. Tuck the fresh basil into the corners to garnish. Serve promptly. Store leftover zucchini noodles, tomatoes, and basil in one container, and pesto in another, then combine and season with salt just before serving (they’ll keep for up to 4 days this way).
Notes
Recipe adapted from Pure Delicious by Heather Christo, with permission.
2026 recipe edit: Heather’s original recipe included ½ small yellow onion, roughly chopped, in the pesto. I prefer it without, which offers a more classic pesto flavor profile, so I omitted it.
Nutrition
The information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice. See our full nutrition disclosure here.
Really delish, I do put a dollop of the pesto in a frying pan and heat the zucchini through to lightly cooked. Love your recipes and have had a lot of success with them, thank you!
This recipe is amazing and has been such a hit at my house!
Subbed pine nuts for pepitas b/c that is what I had on hand but would love to try this with pepitas next time! Used store-bought, pre-prepared yellow zucchini noodles. Also, once I had prepared the pesto and coated the noodles, I put everything into a sauté pan to heat it up a bit before serving. On this cold winter night, I felt like enjoying this dish warm. It was a definite hit!
I just made this and it was absolutely delicious. I’ve always cooked my zucchini noodles – until now! Never again. They were so much better raw. I cooked this with some Cajun spiced tofu and loved the combo. Summer is here!
hi,
can i use roasted and salted pepitas and skip the toasting?
You can try it. Let me know what you think!
Recipe looks wonderful. So you don’t cook the zuch noodles? Thanks.
No need to cook them! I hope you love it.
Husband recently brought home some enormous zucchini from a coworker, and someone needed to make use of them. So I went and bought a spiralizer, made this for dinner last night and we all really enjoyed it. My teenager scarfed it up! Thanks for another great recipe!
You’re welcome, Kimberlyn! I appreciate your review.
Just happened to have all the ingredients so I made it for dinner tonight. Didn’t add onion because I’m not a big fan.
It was Delicious and easy to make. Luckily, I have a spiralizer. Great light meal!
Thank you!
You’re welcome, M!
I left out the onion and topped with pecorino and sauteed shrimp. Oh my goodness, this was fantastic! Will definitely make again through the summer – it’s perfectly light but filling (at least with shrimp and cheese!).
We tried this recipe, and, mind you, we are pretty adventurous! Well it didn’t go well for us. Too much garlic, too much onion, not enough basil…and I followed the recipe. We are not sure if it was us or the recipe, but this one went right into the circular file!
I’m sorry you didn’t love this recipe. I appreciate your feedback.
Do you cook the zucchini?
I checked your site for zucchini recipe ideas and this one really peaked my interest because I also have an abundance of basil. I don’t have a spiralizer so appreciate you mentioning the julienne peeler idea. Looking forward to making this because it’s “different”.
PS – can you suggest a spiralizer?
Hi Debbi, this recipe would be a great use of zucchini and basil. I have had good luck with OXO brand kitchen tools, and they make several styles of spiralizers.