This Zucchini Pasta Sauce is a delicious, light cream sauce that’s bursting with fresh zucchini flavor! Toss this fresh sauce with your favorite pasta shape, layer it in a lasagna or even enjoy it as a creamy, comforting soup!
Why We Love This Zucchini Pasta Sauce Recipe
Got zucchini??? Maybe you got a little too eager planting the garden this year? Or you’re just looking for a delicious, comforting homemade pasta sauce? Step aside for this Zucchini Pasta Sauce because it’s a winner.
- Packed with Vegetables: We’re not going to go so far as to say that this homemade pasta sauce is good for you, there’s a good amount of cream in here. BUT it is packed with two pound of zucchini, onions and garlic, how can that be bad?
- Fresh Flavor: The fresh zucchini flavor that this pasta sauce has is no match for anything that comes out of a jar.
- Versatile: You can use this zucchini pasta sauce with any pasta shape and in most pasta recipes, even lasagna. You can even ladle it into a bowl with croutons and enjoy it as a soup!
How To Make
There’s just a few steps involved to getting this delicious sauce ready to go. There’s step by step photos here with brief descriptions, but for the full recipe head to the recipe card at the end of the post.
- Start by cooking down diced zucchini and onions: A rough, large dice will do since it’s all going to be blended with onion in a skillet with olive oil. This step will take about 10 minutes to soften the zucchini and onion and to achieve a nice, deep flavor.
- Add Liquids and Aromatics: Once the vegetables have cooked down, add heavy cream, chicken broth, fresh thyme and a bay leaf. Season with salt and pepper and let simmer for 15 minutes.
- Blend: After removing the bay leaf and thyme stems, grab an immersion blender, tilt the skillet and blend the sauce until smooth and creamy. Or you can let the sauce cool slightly and then transfer it to a blender. After blending, taste the zucchini pasta sauce for seasoning and adjust if needed.
- Ready To Use: This pasta sauce recipe will make more than enough for a pound of pasta, you’ll most likely have some extra. Add your favorite pasta shape to the sauce, toss and serve!
Variations
Besides zucchini, you can also use different kinds of squash to make this pasta sauce! Follow the same recipe here, just swapping out cubes of different types of squash. Some squash will take longer to soften so just give it some extra time in the skillet, or try dicing the squash and roasting it first.
- Yellow Squash
- Butternut Squash
- Pumpkin
- Kabocha
- Acorn Squash
You can also try using different herbs like basil or oregano. Toss the pasta and sauce with a little diced tomato for added flavor, or even add a protein like Italian sausage or shredded chicken!
Storing and Reheating
Store leftover zucchini pasta sauce in an air tight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. After that if you still have leftovers, you can also freeze the sauce. Even though this pasta sauce has cream in it, it does freeze nicely. To reheat refrigerated sauce, you can warm it on the stove top or in the microwave. Sometimes even stirring it into hot pasta is enough!
To reheat frozen sauce, let it defrost in the refrigerator and then reheat on the stove top over low heat, whisking to bring the sauce back together. If the sauce breaks a bit upon reheating, you can add a touch more cream and whisk it back together.
Can I Make This Pasta Sauce Vegetarian?
Absolutely! Just swap out the chicken broth for vegetable broth, it’s as easy as that! This pasta sauce recipe is very adaptable, you can add or swap out many of the ingredients.
More Homemade Sauce Recipes
- Homemade Stir Fry Sauce
- Huli Huli Sauce
- Chimichurri Sauce
- Bang Bang Sauce
- Peanut Sauce
- Yum Yum Sauce
- Our famous Awesome Sauce
Zucchini Pasta Sauce
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Total Time: 35 minutes
- Yield: 6 Servings 1x
Print Recipe
Pin RecipeThis Zucchini Pasta Sauce is a delicious, light cream sauce that’s bursting with fresh zucchini flavor! Use with any shape pasta, layer in lasagna or even enjoy as a soup.
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 2 pounds zucchini, cut into a large dice
- 1 large onion, cut into a large dice
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- Fresh black pepper to taste (start with at least 1 teaspoon)
- 1 –2 tablespoons chopped garlic
- 2 cups chicken broth
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 1 tablespoon chopped thyme (you can also add thyme stems right into the sauce for a lighter flavor and then remove the stems before blending)
- 1 bay leaf
- 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
- 2 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
Instructions
- Add the olive oil and butter to a large skillet over medium heat. Once the butter has melted, add the zucchini and onion and season with salt and pepper. Cook the vegetables, stirring occasionally, for 8-10 minutes until softened. Add the garlic and cook another minute.
- Pour in the chicken broth and cream and stir. Add the bay leaf and thyme and simmer the sauce over low heat, uncovered for 20 minutes.
- Remove the bay leaf and thyme stems from the sauce and then puree with a stick blender until smooth. Tilt the skillet so that the sauce doesn’t splatter, or alternately, you can let the sauce cool and then transfer to a blender.
- Stir in the parmesan cheese and parsley. Taste the sauce and adjust the seasonings if needed.
Recipe Notes
This pasta sauce will make more than enough for a whole pound of pasta. Add the sauce to your cooked pasta a little at a time and toss for desired consistency. Store extra sauce in a covered container for up to a week.
Frozen sauce can be defrosted and reheated on the stove top, whisking to bring the sauce back together and also adding a splash more cream if needed.
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Stove Top
- Cuisine: American
The zucchini tasted so good we at it as a side. The ingredients include garlic instructions don’t indicate the garlic. I didn’t use cheese and used half and half cause that’s what I had on hand. Was delish and easy – thanks!!!
This looks delicious but I was wondering if the broth, thyme and bay leaf were accidently mentioned in the ingredients as they aren’t included in the instructions?
Vicki, I updated this recipe just now. This was a very old recipe of mine and when I changed recipe cards some of the older ones didn’t update well. Thank you for letting me know!
This looks amazing! I’m going to try it this weekend, and hopefully that will mean another vegetable that she likes.
Oops, I meant another vegetable that my kid likes!
Are the chopped zucchini supposed to be peeled and seeded?
@Monica – I peeled the zucchini, then roasted it. I didn’t seed it but you could if you’d like. You could also roast it with the peels on, totally up to you!
What an awesome sauce, love it!! We are huge zucchini fans here so we’ve got to try this one!
Thanks Matt-The kids even like it, which is a huge plus! Hats off to Paul @Family Kitchen Ravioli for sharing the recipe with me.