Goat Cheese Sauce with Cucumber and Ham
This creamy goat cheese pasta sauce with cucumber and ham is perfect on top of pasta, spaghetti or for lower carb it’s fantastic on zucchini noodles or spaghetti squash.
An interesting combination of ingredients, to be sure, but they are surprisingly good together. It’s definitely not your usual pasta sauce, but it’s perfect for when you like a change!
When we started making this one, I remember being skeptical about it and thinking, there’s no way cucumbers in pasta sauce.
But sure enough, I was mistaken.
This is one we come back to again and again. It’s mild but with an interesting flavor. If you’re a fan of goat cheese, and a fan of low carb sauce that tastes indulgent without being heavy – this one’s for you!
Content in this Post
Ingredients in Goat Cheese Pasta Sauce
- Goat Cheese — We use soft, unripened, 12%, goat cheese.
- Milk — 3.25% homogenized milk for a creamy sauce. You can use your preferred milk but the consistency may be thinner.
- Cucumber –sliced cucumber, sliced lengthwise and remove the inner seed portion if you like to cut into a “C” shape.
- Ham — You can use leftover cooked ham from a holiday dinner, or slice up some deli style cooked ham.
- Red Onion — diced, you can use white or yellow onions instead.
- Salt — Himalayan salt, ground.
- Pepper — black pepper, freshly ground
- Zucchini — Our choice for lower carb noodles, zucchini “zoodles” noodles. You can use a special hand held made for zucchini, or else any type of food processer that has this feature to turn zucchini into the shape of fettucine.
- Oil — Avocado oil, or olive oil, to saute the zucchini noodles in.
- Garlic — one clove garlic, minced, to saute with the zucchini noodles.
- Lemon Juice — fresh squeezed lemon juice to saute the zucchini in.
Optional Ingredient Variations
If you’d like to make another similar style of goat cheese pasta sauce, you can follow the same procedure with some optional ingredient variations.
You can make goat cheese pasta sauce the same way with red onions and sliced ham. Instead of cucumbers, you can add sliced mushrooms and/or sliced sundried tomatoes to enjoy goat cheese sundried tomato pasta.
This is another savory, flavorful combo that is excellent on zucchini noodles, spaghetti squash or regular pasta.
Garnish your goat cheese pasta sauce with parsley or basil. Shake on some parmesan cheese and red pepper flakes if you like them.
What To Do With Leftover Ham
This is a perfect dish for when you have leftover ham from a holiday dinner that you want to enjoy. Perhaps you have quite a bit of leftover ham and you’re getting tired of the same old same old.
Goat cheese pasta sauce is excellent for jazzing up your plain leftover ham. Just slice your leftover ham thin, dice it and incorporate into this one of a kind pasta sauce.
Another option for leftover ham is to make ham pita pizzas. They are super easy and are loved by all – even the kiddos will enjoy these pizzas.
Ham is our kids favorite pizza topping after cheese and sauce.
You can keep the ham pita pizzas basic or add toppings such as pineapple and adults can spice it up with hot banana pepper rings if you love spicy Hawaiian pizza.
Health Benefits of Goat Cheese Pasta Sauce
Goat cheese is a great choice for a creamy sauce that won’t slow you down. Unlike alfredo sauce, with saturated fat that is sure to tire you out, this goat cheese pasta sauce is full of vitamins and minerals and will energize you.
It’s got less fat than alfredo sauce, and the good news is goat cheese is made up of heart healthy fats. Goat cheese has about 26 g of fat compared to 36 g of fat in alfredo sauce, per 100g.
Goat cheese also contains zero carbs. Compare that to 37g carbs in 100g of alfredo sauce. For people interested in reducing carbs, goat cheese is a satiating option for a low carb sauce.
If that’s not enough, goat cheese is more easily digestible than cow cheese. So people who have difficulty with digesting cow cheese may find it easier to digest goat cheese. I know I sure do!
Not to mention, this sauce just has a lovely taste to it. If you’re a fan of goat cheese you will love this sauce. We really feel like we are indulging in a restaurant style gourmet dish, when in fact, it’s super easy to make!
Stir fry a few ingredients, melt the goat cheese into sauce, pour over your zoodles and you’re good to go.
How to Make Goat Cheese Pasta Sauce
This sauce is very easy to make. You begin by sauteing the onions and cucumbers and ham. Then add in the combined goat cheese and milk sauce.
Be careful to not overheat your goat cheese sauce so that it burns on the stove. You will need to mind the heat and stir frequently.
Once the onion and cucumbers are tender, and the goat cheese is melted into a creamy sauce, you can pour it over your favorite noodles.
If you go the low carb route you will need to use a to spiralize your zucchini noodles and then saute them in a little olive oil and minced garlic, salt and pepper for a minute or so until tender crisp. Do not overcook!
If you find your zucchini noodles are too long you can use kitchen scissors to cut them.
What to Serve with Goat Cheese Pasta Sauce
With this dish, we tend to make Instant Pot spaghetti squash or use a spiralizer for zucchini noodles. You can serve it with fettucine or linguine, spaghetti or any pasta you love.
A salad like house style Italian salad, Greek salad or asparagus cucumber tomato salad are fabulous options.
If you like, you can serve with garlic bread or regular buttered buns.
Storage Tips
Cooked goat cheese pasta sauce can be kept in the fridge for three or four days, however best consumed within two days for best flavor.
You can freeze the sauce if you like, in a freezer safe air tight container. Goat cheese pasta sauce will keep well frozen for several months.
You Might Also Like
Another favorite cucumber recipe, if you’re looking to make something with your garden cucumbers or any time. It is also an excellent side dish with this goat cheese pasta sauce on spiralized zucchini noodles.
Cucumber Tomato Asparagus salad is a year round classic salad, especially in summer at picnics and barbecue events.
Did you make this recipe?
Please rate it!
Yummly Facebook Email
Goat Cheese Pasta Sauce
Equipment
Ingredients
GOAT CHEESE PASTA SAUCE
- 6 ounces Goat Cheese, soft
- ½ cup Milk, 3.5% whole or 3.25% homogenized
- 1 Cucumber, cored and cut in half moons
- ½ pound Ham, thin sliced
- ¼ cup Red Onion, chopped
- 2 tablespoon Olive Oil, extra virgin
- 2 teaspoon Salt, Himalayan, ground
- 1 teaspoon Black Pepper, freshly ground
ZUCCHINI NOODLES
- 1 Zucchini, shredded into spaghetti
- ¼ cup Lemon Juice, freshly squeezed
- 1 clove Garlic, minced
Instructions
MAKE THE GOAT CHEESE SAUCE BASE
- Place the goat cheese in a sauce pan.
- Pour in the milk.
- Crumble the goat cheese using a fork.
- Slowly melt the cheese into the milk using a low heat setting.
STIR FRY CUCUMBER, ONION AND HAM
- Pour half of the oil, along with all the cucumber, onion and ham into a pan.
- Stir fry the ingredients on medium heat until starting to be brown (about 5 minutes).
- Add in half of the salt and all the pepper.
- Mix and continue to fry for an additional minute or two.
- Pour in the goat cheese and milk sauce base.
- Mix well and keep the sauce mixture warm on the residual heat.
ZUCCHINI NOODLES
- Rinse and shred the zucchini using a handheld vegetable spiralizer or food processor with a similar function. If the zucchini noodles seem too long you can cut them with kitchen scissors.
- Press Sauté on Instant Pot. Place the zucchini noodles and the rest of the olive oil in the instant pot. Alternatively, you could stir fry briefly in pan on stove top instead of using an Instant Pot.
- Add the lemon juice and garlic. Sauté for a minute or so until the zucchini is tender crisp. Do not overcook!
- Place the zucchini noodles on a plate and pour the goat cheese pasta sauce mixture over top. Serve while warm.
Nutrition
Note
The above nutritional values are estimates and should only be used as a guide. If you are following a specific diet or have dietary restrictions, please use your preferred nutritional calculator. If you have a food allergy please ensure that none of the listed ingredients are part of your restrictions. As well, always use a food thermometer to ensure safe cooking temperature of the food items.
