Heat 2 teaspoons olive oil in a skillet on medium heat. Add minced garlic and sauté for a minute. Don’t let the garlic turn brown. Add finely chopped tomatoes, red wine vinegar, salt, and black pepper. Simmer until the tomatoes are well cooked and pureed, about 10 minutes. Transfer sauce into a bowl and set aside.
Cook the zucchini noodles
Use your spiralizer to make zucchini noodles, or open up your store-bought package. Finely slice shallots or red onions. Get your basil out and remove the leaves from the stems.
Wash the skillet you used for the sauce, and start with 1 teaspoon olive oil on medium-high heat. Add zucchini noodles and cook 3-4 minutes, until starting to soften. Add finely sliced red onion, and continue to cook until the zucchini is cooked to your liking. Chop the basil leaves, or tear them by hand, and fold them into the hot zucchini noodles. Season with salt and pepper.
Transfer zucchini noodles into individual serving dishes, then spoon on the tomato sauce. Garnish with optional crumbled feta cheese. Sprinkle with extra black pepper and enjoy.
Enhance your meal
For a complete meal, serve with a hearty green salad including cucumbers to help cool off the warming quality of the tomatoes. Consider a creamy ranch dressing with the salad, also for the cooling quality. You could also serve this with fresh Italian bread. The fresh tomato sauce would make a fantastic dipping sauce :)
Notes
These days, many grocery stores sell zucchini noodles. If you haven’t tried them yet, this is your opportunity :)For those of you that have a spiralizer in your kitchen tool kit, you can spiralize 6 cups of zucchini in less than a minute. A spiralizer is an incredibly quick and handy tool for meal prep, especially if adding more vegetables to your diet is your goal.For those of you who will use canned tomatoes, start with the olive oil and garlic, and use tomato puree or sauce instead of the fresh tomatoes. You will need one 15.5-ounce can of tomatoes. Follow with the remaining instructions, and simmer for 5 minutes to marry the flavors. MAKE THIS VEGAN!Replace the feta cheese garnish with hazelnuts, almonds, or another nut for protein.MAKE THIS MEATY!It is really easy to add meat as a topping to the dish. Chicken breast is an obvious choice. Italian sausage, or even plant-based sausage or meatballs would also be very good.