Olive Garden Falls Into The Sweet Carb-Less Embrace Of The Zoodle

The zoodle remains ascendant. After helping save the soul of Noodles & Co. in spectacular fashion, the zucchini "pasta" continues its quest to achieve total annihilation of the traditional noodle by making further inroads in a garden. The garden. The Olive Garden.

The O.G.'s latest menu addition is Zoodles Primavera, in which the non-pasta pasta is tossed in a light basil cream sauce with vegetables (five daily servings' worth, in fact, per an email from a representative for the company). There's a lunch-sized portion too, the Zoodles Primavera lunch bowl, which is available at lunchtime, for lunch. Both versions, provided you don't add chicken or shrimpies, falls under the Tastes of the Mediterranean menu, which features dishes that clock in at under 600 calories. Zoodle-y doo.

This isn't Olive Garden's first foray into the world of the noodle alternative. As Delish reports, in January 2017, the chain introduced both spiralized zoodles and squash noodles in another low-calorie dish. That one, however, also contained some whole grain linguine, so this is a major zoodle inroad.

The Takeout's official stance of the zoodle remains: indifferent. Pasta is delicious. Zucchini cut into noodle-shaped strips... an affront to Italian food or tolerable? If any of you have tried it, please let us know your thoughts.