These Thai chicken zucchini noodles are made with zucchini pasta and coated in a creamy peanut Thai sauce for a healthier version of takeout.

I’m about to liken Thai chicken zucchini noodles to a car, get ready.

So we have 2 cars, (and a truck and a jeep that gets used maybe 6 times a year but somehow gets the one coveted garage spot…don’t ask) mine, which is a Lexus suv and Ulysses’, which is a BMW 5 series.

They were both bought used FYI, something I feel should be clarified as that sentence above sounds way bougie. I also absolutely refuse to ever buy a new car considering it’s probably the worst financial decision you can make in this world.

Particularly, when you have a husband who can do all things car related from oil changes to rebuilding a transmission if necessary.

But, I digress.

These Thai chicken zucchini noodles are made with zucchini and coated in a creamy peanut Thai sauce.
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Ulysses needed to take my car with him this week because his had an issue that he wasn’t able to fix in time before leaving last Sunday.

So it got fixed (thanks to another mechanically inclined friend) Wednesday night just in time for me to drive it back and forth to Connecticut for work yesterday, a 4 hour round trip.

Now let’s discuss this so called “Ultimate Driving Machine”.

I’ll start with the one and only pro I can give it, it drives amazingly. Like a race car, nice and tight (there should be a ‘that’s what HE said’ acronym because that’s pretty much the best line for it ever).

But then there’s everything else about it…

To say the dashboard is complicated is like saying Bradley Cooper is good looking (sorry, I just can’t get on the Channing Tatum bus)…um, UNDERSTATEMENT.

There are a million lighted symbols that apparently mean something in Germany that’s quite obviously associated with a car’s inner workings but somehow don’t quite translate to American English too well.

Then there’s the display that controls EVERYTHING. They call it the iDrive. Looks like an Apple spin-off doesn’t it? You see that little lower case “i” and you’re all “oh, I can do this, must be just like my iphone”, ha.

It took me 15 minutes the first time I drove the car to figure out how to turn on the radio. I gave up on trying to program a preset station after about 20 minutes.

So it’s this one big dial that sits right in the console area and it’s used to control literally every single thing you would do in a car.

Want to change the air flow from your feet to defrost? Oh, that’s just 157 clicks and 47 turns of the dial.

Want to go change the station manually instead of listening to presets? That one’s not as bad…only 34 clicks and 7 turns.

Seriously, what happened to just pressing a freakin’ button on the dash?  iMyAss.

Give your favorite Thai noodle dish a healthy makeover with zucchini noodles.

So I’m driving home today from Connecticut and not even 5 minutes after pulling out of the office parking lot, the dash blows up on me.

I’ve got exclamations marks in 3 places, the display area turns half orange and there’s this loud “bling! bling! bling!” noise coming from the speakers that just about drove me off the road in terror.

I look at the display and it’s all FLAT TIRE! With literally 3 paragraphs about tire pressure and driving and speeds of operation.

So of course, I freak because I’m just about the furthest away from home I can be at this point and thoughts of changing tires and wondering if there even IS a spare in this car start racing through my mind. But then I realize it doesn’t feel like I have a flat tire. The car is driving fine…

So I continue to doggie day care to pick up Ginger which is about 5 minutes away and decide to assess the situation when I get there.

I get out of the car, look at the tires and THEY LOOK FINE. Now, I know tires can contract in the cold weather and cause monitors to go off for low pressure but it was like 55 degrees today. I had the windows open!

So I drove home for the next 2 hours with a 60 lb. hyper Weimaraner in about 2 square feet of space breathing fish breath all over me in a state of panic that I was going to spontaneously lose a tire.

And that’s when I realize that this car is just too complicated for it’s own good. My car somehow manages to have pretty much every single feature of the BMW minus the sudden onset of stress and panic when you step into it.

In fact, my tire pressure monitor came on a few weeks ago when it was like -10 outside and you want to know how Lexus went about notifying me of that fact?

A light.

A simple tire light in my dashboard.

No bling! bling! bling! at ear piercing decibels, no orange warning signs taking up half my dash and nothing with the word “flat” in all caps terrorizing me from the screen.

Lexus is all, “this is a luxury car and we’re going to keep this a luxury environment. No need for panic, it’s most likely just the cold air, but we just want to make you aware. Thank you, have a nice day”.

While BMW is all, “DANGER! DANGER! DANGER! PULL OVER NOW! YOU’RE GOING TO DIE!”

Zucchini noodles are tossed in a flavorful Thai peanut sauce with shredded chicken for a healthier spin on classic Thai noodles.

This recipe for Thai chicken zucchini noodles is a Lexus.

Luxury in the guise of simplicity. Tastes complex, but couldn’t be easier to make.

BMWs have no place in my life either in the driveway or the kitchen.

I love a good zucchini noodle recipe and use my beloved julienne peeler and spiralizer all the time for zucchini noodle making (and other vegetable noodle making for that matter). You can make noodles out of any kind of summer squash by the way, even round zucchini!

Thai food is one of my favorite things in all the land.

We sadly have no Thai restaurants within takeout driving distance to us so unless we want to go out for a sit down Thai dinner, I usually end up making Thai food at home like sticky Thai chicken, Thai pineapple fried rice (<– a copycat of that one they serve in a pineapple!) or Pad Thai salad.

This Thai chicken zucchini noodle recipe (along with my Thai Kohlrabi Noodle Salad) is my attempt at a healthier Thai noodle dish. 

Zucchini noodles are the perfect way to amp up the health factor of a recipe by swapping out rice/grain noodles.

With the delicious creamy peanut sauce in these Thai chicken zucchini noodles, you won’t even notice the healthier swap!

Try more zucchini noodle recipes like these:
Zucchini noodles with sausage, cherries and ricotta
Basil and mint squash noodles
Zucchini noodles with creamy roasted tomato basil sauce

4.75 from 4 votes

Thai Chicken Zucchini Noodles

Servings: 2 servings
Prep: 15 minutes
Cook: 8 minutes
Total: 23 minutes
These Thai chicken zucchini noodles are made with zucchini pasta and coated in a creamy peanut Thai sauce for a healthier version of takeout.

Ingredients 

  • 1 chicken breast
  • salt & pepper
  • 1 tablespoon coconut oil
  • 1 large zucchini, peeled/spiralized (I used a julienne peeler)
  • 1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
  • 2 tablespoons cashews, chopped
  • 1 carrot, chopped
  • 1 tablespoon peanut butter
  • 1/2 lime, juiced
  • 1/2 tablespoon honey
  • 2 tablespoons coconut cream from a can
  • 1/2 tablespoon fish sauce
  • 1 teaspoon ginger, minced
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 1/2 tablespoon jalapeno, minced

Instructions 

  • Heat a skillet over medium high heat and melt coconut oil.
  • Season chicken breast with salt & pepper and once hot, add to skillet.
  • Cook for about 3-4 minutes per side until cooked through.
  • Remove from skillet and shred, set aside.
  • In a small bowl combine, peanut butter, lime juice, honey, coconut cream, fish sauce, ginger, garlic & jalapeno. Whisk together and set aside.
  • Combine shredded chicken in a large bowl with peeled/spiralized zucchini, cilantro, cashews and carrots.
  • Pour the sauce in the bowl and toss to combine.

Nutrition

Serving: 1SERVINGCalories: 365kcalCarbohydrates: 24gProtein: 23gFat: 20gSaturated Fat: 11gPolyunsaturated Fat: 8gCholesterol: 51mgSodium: 662mgFiber: 2gSugar: 17g

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

Additional Info

Course: Main Dishes
Cuisine: Thai
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Founder and Writer at Running to the Kitchen | About

Gina Matsoukas is an AP syndicated writer. She is the founder, photographer and recipe developer of Running to the Kitchen — a food website focused on providing healthy, wholesome recipes using fresh and seasonal ingredients. Her work has been featured in numerous media outlets both digital and print, including MSN, Huffington post, Buzzfeed, Women’s Health and Food Network.

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Recipe Rating




4.75 from 4 votes (4 ratings without comment)

33 Comments

  1. Hi – I notice there is coconut cream in the ingredients but not the directions. How does that fit in ? Looks amazing, thanks!

    1. Oops! Sorry about that, I’ll edit the directions now but it should just be added to the bowl with all the other sauce ingredients and whisked together with them.

  2. This looks wonderful! However I was wondering about the coconut cream. It is mentioned in the list but not in the directions, does it go with the rest of the ingredients in the sauce?

  3. Ha! I have a 5 series the same circa as yours. Everyone hates the iDrive. If you want really scary, try having someone sit in the passenger seat (and someone can occasionally be a slightly heavy purse) without buckling their seatbelt. The car loses its mind.

    1. Ha! Funny story b/c I almost wrote about that in the post but figured I had complained enough. My dog was sitting on the floor on the passenger side for this trip and on the last hour home she was getting super uncomfortable. It’s a small space for a 60lb. dog so I let her up on the passenger seat. Within seconds the car was going crazy. So there I was going like 75 on the highway reaching over to try and buckle the seatbelt behind the dog while she’s sitting in the seat like a human. fun times. I’m happy to have my car back this week :)

  4. This looks awesome and will make an delicious dinner for my first day of my paleo challenge (of course I’ll substitute the peanut butter for sunbutter, yay!) You’re the best!!

  5. Look like you really had a bad day but its okay because you were still able to manage sharing a recipe for a great noodle dish. Thanks.

  6. Yummy that recipe looks so good! I’ve been thinking of buying a spiralizer to make all kinds of vegetable noodles to eat.

  7. Hahaha love the car analogy! And you are too funny about Channing Tatum.

    And these noodles? Yeah, just added it to my menu for this week!

  8. There’s a lot of goodness here from a well told story to beautiful photos to an elegant recipe, but I’m struggling with the Channing Tatum situation. Have you seen his Magic character? Not the painful acting but the dancing? Still no love? Either way, thanks for the rest of it. Always brightens my day.

  9. What a great recipe!
    The only swap I’d make is using a different nut butter in place of the peanut butter, but this looks great!
    Thanks for sharing!