Easy and Healthy Zucchini Recipes

Four ways to use zucchini: baked fries, sliders, pizza bites and parmesan sticks. All four are low in calories and none takes longer than half an hour.

Zucchini is mostly water, which is what makes it filling for very little energy, and also what you have to work around when cooking it.

Baked zucchini fries

Crisp-tender, around 135 calories, and baked rather than fried.

Ingredients

• 1 cup panko crumbs
• 1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan
• 1 tsp Italian seasoning
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 4 zucchini, quartered lengthways
• 1/2 cup plain flour
• 2 large eggs, beaten
• 2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 220C. Coat a cooling rack with non-stick spray and place it on a baking tray.
2. In a large bowl, combine the panko, parmesan and Italian seasoning. Season with salt and pepper and set aside.
3. Working in batches, dredge the zucchini in flour, dip into the egg, then coat in the panko mixture, pressing it on.
4. Place on the prepared rack and bake for 20 to 22 minutes, until golden brown and crisp.
5. Serve immediately, garnished with parsley.

Panko is a Japanese-style breadcrumb, usually found in the Asian section of the supermarket. It is coarser than ordinary breadcrumbs, which is why it crisps better.

Zucchini sliders

Zucchini rounds in place of a bun.

Ingredients

• 1 extra large zucchini, or 2 medium, cut into 16 rounds about 1 cm thick
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 450 g lean beef mince
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 4 slices cheddar, each cut into quarters
• Avocado oil cooking spray

Method

1. Rinse the zucchini and pat dry.
2. Cut off the ends, then slice into rounds about 1 cm thick.
3. Sprinkle the rounds with a little salt and pepper and set aside on paper towel.
4. In a medium bowl, combine the beef mince and all the seasonings, stirring until well combined.
5. Shape into 8 equal mini patties, about 2.5 cm thick.
6. Pat the zucchini rounds dry again with paper towel.
7. Lightly grease a large frying pan and heat over medium-high. Add the zucchini rounds and cook until slightly charred, 1 to 2 minutes each side.
8. Set the zucchini aside on a plate.
9. Add the patties to the pan and sear each side until golden, 2 to 4 minutes. Flip, then add the cheese.
10. Continue cooking until the beef is done to your liking and the cheese has melted.
11. Assemble and serve immediately.

Zucchini pizza bites

Five ingredients, fifteen minutes.

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 3 zucchini, cut into rounds about 5 mm thick
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 1/3 cup marinara sauce
• 1/2 cup finely grated mozzarella
• 1/4 cup mini pepperoni
• 1 tbsp Italian seasoning

Method

1. Heat the grill (broiler) in your oven.
2. Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Working in batches, add the zucchini and cook, flipping once, until golden, 1 to 2 minutes each side. Season with salt and pepper.
3. Place the rounds on a large baking tray. Top each with marinara, mozzarella and pepperoni.
4. Grill until the cheese has melted, 1 to 2 minutes.
5. Serve immediately, sprinkled with Italian seasoning.

Baked parmesan zucchini

Crisp, tender zucchini sticks, oven roasted.

Ingredients

• 4 zucchini, quartered lengthways
• 1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme
• 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• 1/2 tsp dried basil
• 1/4 tsp garlic powder
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Coat a cooling rack with non-stick spray and place it on a baking tray.
2. In a small bowl, combine the parmesan, thyme, oregano, basil, garlic powder, salt and pepper.
3. Place the zucchini on the prepared rack. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle over the parmesan mixture. Bake until tender, about 15 minutes, then grill for 2 to 3 minutes until crisp and golden.
4. Serve immediately, garnished with parsley.

Why does my zucchini go soggy?

Because it is roughly 95% water, and that water has to go somewhere.

Three things fix it, in order of effectiveness:

• Cook it on a rack, not flat on a tray. Both baked recipes here specify a cooling rack on a baking tray, and that is not a detail. On a flat tray the underside sits in released moisture and steams. On a rack the air circulates and it roasts.
• Salt it first. Sprinkle cut zucchini with salt, leave it 10 to 15 minutes, then pat dry. It draws out a surprising amount of water. Worth doing whenever you have the time.
• Do not crowd the pan. Zucchini in a heap steams itself. Cook in batches, as the slider and pizza bite recipes say.

A hot oven helps too. That is why the fries go in at 220C rather than the 180C used for the parmesan sticks.

What is the healthiest way to eat zucchini?

Lightly cooked or raw, with some fat alongside it.

Zucchini holds up well to most cooking, but like any vegetable it loses some vitamin C to prolonged heat and water. Roasting, grilling and quick pan-frying preserve more than boiling does. Raw, spiralised or thinly sliced into a salad, keeps the most.

The olive oil in these recipes is doing a nutritional job as well as a culinary one: some of the nutrients in vegetables absorb better with fat present.

Honestly though, the healthiest way to eat zucchini is the way that gets you to eat it. Crumbed and baked with parmesan still counts.

Is zucchini good for weight loss?

It is genuinely useful, for one straightforward reason.

Zucchini is very low in energy density: high water content, some fibre, very few calories per gram. That means you can eat a satisfying volume of it without much energy, and volume is a large part of what makes people feel full. That is why it works as a pasta substitute or a bun substitute, as in the sliders above.

The honest caveat is that no single food causes fat loss. Zucchini helps because it displaces more energy-dense food, not because of anything in the vegetable itself. Coat it in panko, parmesan and egg and you have changed the equation considerably, though it is still a better bet than a hot chip.

What else can I make with zucchini?

• Zucchini noodles, spiralised, as a pasta substitute.
• Grated into fritters with egg and flour. Squeeze the water out first.
• Grated into cakes and loaves, where it adds moisture without flavour.
• Halved and stuffed, then baked with mince and cheese.
• Grilled in long strips with lemon and olive oil.
• Raw and shaved into a salad with parmesan and lemon.

It is one of the more forgiving vegetables. The only real rule is dealing with the water.

Recipes adapted from Clean Food Crush and Damn Delicious.

For more like this, browse the full recipe collection.