The sauce for this creamy, luscious fettuccine recipe has ONE INGREDIENT but it also has plenty of bright, fresh veggies to keep you from feeling too guilty to enjoy it.

I love pasta, and not just in a carbaholic kind of way, although that is swell too. Pasta is the most fun and creative food ever invented. Each shape has a specific sauce it’s meant to be with, and the shapes themselves *wow*! There are a million of them and some of the names are hysterical like this one:

Pope’s Hat

So named because it looks like the Pope’s hat.

Can you imagine having a hat so spectacular that a pasta shape is dedicated to it? Now that’s a bad ass hat.

Pasta generally fits into one of these categories:

Long Pastas

This category includes pasta like angel hair and spaghetti. These shapes go well with light sauces like pesto, thin marinara, and aglio and olio (garlic and olive oil). These simple sauces won’t weigh down the pasta.

Ribbon Pastas

Ribbons like linguini and fettuccine rank a richer cream based sauce like Alfredo and the larger ribbons like pappardelle and tagliatelle can handle rich, meaty sauces like a ragu.

Short Pastas

Anything like tubes (rigatoni,  penne, macaroni), shells, and spirals. These are the most versatile and work in soups, salads, casseroles. They either have holes or deep ridges to hold creamy or hearty sauces and texturally stand up to small pieces of protein and vegetables.

Mini Pastas

Alphabeto and stellete (stars!) are great in broth based soups like Italian Wedding Soup or work as a salad like orzo and acini de pepe (grains of pepper)

Filled Pastas

Include ravioli, tortellini and pope’s hat!. We can argue later over glass of prosecco about whether manicotti and cannelloni should be in this category or in long/tubes.

Crazy

Bite size chunky shapes like farfalle (bow ties), ruote (wheels), sorprese (bells), and cavatappi work well with hearty sauce and bite size vegetables, proteins and cheese in a pasta salad or this Pesto Cavatappi.

And each one can come in multiple sizes like spaghettinin, spaghetti and spaghettoni. Spaghetti alla chitarra – square spaghetti!

All this is to explain why I chose fettuccine to go with this one ingredient (!) creamy sauce and why I used a mandolin to shave the vegetables paper thin. Well, that and because it’s the fastest pasta on the planet. Hey Giovanni, more prosecco over here!

Chef Shelley

Creamy Fettuccine with Vegetable Ribbons

Boursin is a soft creamy cheese somewhat similar to, but entirely different from, cream cheese. If you can't find it try Alouette. If you don't have a mandoline or v-slicer, slice the vegetable as thin as you can and add them to the pot while the pasta cooks the last three minutes of cooking time.

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Prep Time 5 minutes mins

Cook Time 10 minutes mins

Total Time 15 minutes mins

Servings: 4

Ingredients Method

Ingredients

  

• 8 ounces fettuccine
• 2 containers Boursin
• 1 medium to large zucchini
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 carrot
• Optional: after pasta is finished top with fresh ground pepper fresh herbs, freshly grated parmesan

Method

 

1. Cook fettuccine according to package directions.
2. While it cooks, use a mandoline or v-slicer to shave the vegetable into paper thin ribbons. Put them in a colander in the sink.
3. Drain the cooked pasta into the colander over the vegetables.
4. Return pasta and vegetables to the pot but don't turn the burner back on.
5. Stir in cheese until melted and pasta is evenly coated and creamy. You might need to add a little water or milk to loosen the sauce.