Spaghetti Salad with Mushroom and Thyme

Name: Spaghetti Salad with Mushroom and Thyme
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 15 min
Yield: 4
Ingredients: 350 g of spaghetti; 400 g of mushrooms (roughly chopped); juice and zest of 1 very large lemon or 2 small; 200 g of baby spinach; 6 spring onions (roughly chopped); 2 cloves of garlic (roughly chopped); 1/3 cup of olive oil; tbsp approximately 1 of fresh thyme leaves; 1 tsp of sea salt; 50 g of parmesan cheese (grated)

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If you’re just looking for something quick and easy — but also delicious — for your main dish, try this spaghetti salad recipe! This mushroom spaghetti can be made in under 20 minutes.

What is Spaghetti Salad?

Regular readers will be aware of my love of mushrooms from the amount of mushroom recipes I’ve shared. There’s been mushroom wellington, mushroom tarte tatin, mushroom and caramelised onion polenta squares, and mushroom spinach and feta pies. Today’s is spaghetti salad with mushrooms and thyme.

Spaghetti salad is a great dinner choice. It’s basically spaghetti pasta with a mayonnaise dressing. This spaghetti salad recipe doesn’t use mayonnaise though. It uses something that’s still quick to make, but has a thick texture that will make your spaghetti salad look like its cheaper counterpart.

The great thing about this mushroom spaghetti dish is that it’s so simple to put together. By the time the pasta is ready the sauce is made, and it’s simply a matter of combining the two and topping with fresh thyme leaves and parmesan. This is the recipe to have on standby when you are too exhausted to cook but don’t want to resort to take out or something equally unhealthy.

Making Your Spaghetti Salad

This is a variation of lemon spaghetti, but with delicious mushrooms, thyme, and spring onions. And the best part about this it’s fast and delicious — and a healthier choice!

Start by cooking your pasta. Of course, this recipe calls for spaghetti, but you can experiment with your favorite noodles! Try shells or rotini — or even orzo! If you’re all about that gluten-free life, then you can try a delicious alternative like organic black bean pasta or spinach pasta. And if you’re gluten-intolerant, I’m sure you know where to find your favorite pasta alternatives.

While your pasta is cooking, you have time to make your delicious sauce. First grab your food processor, then get ready to process. Put your mushrooms, spring onions, garlic, lemon zest and juice, olive oil, and thyme leaves into your processor and process until it’s a thick paste.

By this point, your pasta should be close to done or done. Drain the pasta, top it with the sauce and baby spinach, and mix. Then cover the pot so that the spinach can wilt. After a few minutes it should be ready. Then you can top it with some parmesan and thyme leaves. If you’re not a fan of parmesan, you can use any other kind of cheese or cheese alternative.

Being lactose intolerant can be hard, but there are some great alternatives. Did you know you can actually use nutritional yeast in place of the parmesan? Just sprinkle it on top of the pasta. It give it a cheesy-taste without the lactose. Try just a little to start out though because too much might be an overload for your taste buds. Or you could try some dairy-free cheese. It’s a bit more expensive than regular cheese, but it has a close taste.

Really the only effort required to make this spaghetti salad is to boil some spaghetti, roughly chop some mushrooms, spring onions and garlic and combine with thyme, lemon zest and juice, and olive oil and whiz it all up in a food processor. Then toss it over the hot spaghetti before adding some baby spinach leaves. It’s so quick and so easy.

But it’s delicious too! In fact, when my fiancé Troy and I first started living together four years ago, he admitted he didn’t like mushrooms, and now he regularly requests spaghetti salad with mushrooms for dinner.

This main course serves well with other dishes too! If you have a little more time on your hands, try making an Egyptian beetroot dip and serve with whole-grain crackers. People can snack on that while you’re making the main course. If your family can’t live without dessert, try something sweet but use that thyme again and make honey roasted pears!

What are your favorite quick and easy dinners?

5 from 2 votes