You can, though the matchsticks allows for more even cooking. As well, when I was creating this recipe, I still had quite a bit of zucchini left to use up. I knew I didn't want to spiral the zucchini because sometimes my kids whine about u0022greenu0022 food. Eye roll. So instead, I used my u003cstrongu003efood processoru003c/strongu003e to shred the zucchini into little matchsticks. This lets me u0022hideu0022 the veggies a little better. If you don't have a food processor, you could grate the zucchini by hand, it will just take a few minutes longer.