Zucchini Noodles with Sausage, Cherries and Ricotta

Zucchini noodles with sausage, cherries and ricotta is a healthier way to get your pasta fix in the summer. A delicious combination of savory and sweet.

Things I love:

#1 – Sausage.

Save the the twss comment, I know. And I’m talking real sausage, not the chicken kind.

I eat that too but greasy, pork sausage just can’t be beat.

Especially air fryer sausage. Omg, it’s just SO good. The texture is spot on.

On pizza? Best topping ever.

2- Ricotta.

It’s my most recent obsession documented in this grilled zucchini stack and I’ve eaten it for breakfast for the past 5 days straight. I also can’t get enough of it in this lemon ricotta pasta which is absolute summer perfection but decided to switch things up a little today with another “pasta” type recipe.

3- my zucchini spiralizer/julienne thingy.

Because zucchini noodles are fun.

4- Cherries!

Now that they’re reasonably priced, I’m buying obscene amounts of them.

I thought I had every kitchen gadget I could possibly need but a cherry pitter might be worth the $12.99 price tag even if it only gets used for 1 month out of the entire year.

Those pits are a bitch when you’re using a knife.

So…I combined them all into a “pasta”.

The other night, Ulysses was tasked with getting dinner together.

He was off and I was working out, so I left it in his hands.

I should’ve known better than to expect anything other than whatever freezer to meal food we had on hand.

I got a plate of cooked (frozen) cauliflower + lettuce + cherry tomatoes + frozen tortellini.

He called it “cauliflower pasta” when I walked in the door and asked what he had made.

For a split second I actually thought he somehow managed to make pasta out of cauliflower. Or maybe some baked cauliflower gnocchi recipe.

Clearly, the 16 minutes of tabata I had just done messed with my brain.

Then when I told him what was for dinner the following day and said “zucchini pasta” in reference to this meal he looked at me and said “but where’s the pasta?”

Guess we’re even.

I’m a big fan of zucchini noodles.

Zucchini noodles with avocado cream sauce was the first recipe I tried them in and I’ve been hooked ever since, even recreating them in this zucchini noodles with creamy roasted tomato basil sauce the following year.

Why I Love Zucchini Noodles

They’re the perfect way to still get the “feel” of a traditional pasta dish with lot less calories and some extra vegetable nutrition.

Swap out rice noodles or wheat pasta for zucchini noodles and then adding delicious Italian sausage and creamy homemade ricotta to a meal like this one comes with zero guilt. 

Spiralizer vs. Julienne Peeler

You can make zucchini noodles like I did here in this recipe with a julienne peeler or, you can use a spiralizer. Each have their pros and cons which I talk about in this zucchini noodle recipe if you’re interested.

The spiralizer gives you more flexibility than the julienne peeler and then you can make all sorts of non-traditional noodles like in this roasted winter root vegetable salad or these butternut squash noodles.

The julienne peeler is a more affordable option though and many of the zucchini noodle recipes you see on this site (like this one!) were made with that before I upgraded to the spiralizer.

Either option is great and the perfect way to get these zucchini noodles with sausage, cherries and ricotta on your table!

Try Chinese chicken zoodles or Thai chicken zucchini noodles too!