Courgette spaghetti with pesto and chicken recipe

Courgette spaghetti with pesto and chicken is a quick and easy dish that is both healthy and packed with flavour. If you love pasta, but want to eat something a bit lighter and lower in carbs, then courgette spaghetti is for you. The spiralised courgette acts just like spaghetti and is the perfect base for a pasta sauce. Even better - these clever noodles can count towards one of your five a day. Even fussy eaters won't notice they're eating vegetables when it's disguised as pasta. We've served our courgette spaghetti with home made pesto and seasoned, pan fried chicken fillets. Making your own pesto is so easy and gives far better results than anything you can buy in the shops. All you need to do is blend a few ingredients and you've got a fresh and punchy sauce, without any artificial flavourings or additives. Our recipe uses quark, a lower fat cheese product, popular in Germany, which reduces the fat content and gives the pesto a creamy texture. Courgette spaghetti with pesto and chicken is the perfect healthy summer supper.

Ingredients

• 750g courgettes
• Olive oil spray (we used Frylight)
• 1tbsp olive oil
• 45g pine nuts
• 200g mini chicken fillets
• 2tsp chicken seasoning
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 250g tub quark
• Small bunch basil
• 400ml chicken stock

Method

1. Heat oven to 200°C. Trim courgettes, then use a spiralizer to create tagliatelle-style courgette ribbons. Spread out on to 1 or 2 roasting tins and spritz with the olive oil spray. Cook in the oven for 5 mins.
2. Heat the oil and fry the pine nuts for a few mins, until golden. Set aside.
3. Add the chicken, chicken seasoning and garlic to the pan. Fry for 10 mins, to lightly brown, turning as needed.
4. Put the quark, basil and chicken stock into a food processor and blitz to make a smooth liquid. Pour over the chicken and warm through. Toss together with the courgettes. Serve hot or cold, scattered with pine nuts.