Baked Zucchini Fries Recipe

Yearly, with out fail, I begin my summer season vegetable backyard on the muse of a lie that I’m going to cook dinner and really take pleasure in consuming all the zucchini I satisfied myself into rising. Regardless of my lack of gardening expertise and fixed neglect, my zucchini grows rampant, giving me the false satisfaction of a job effectively executed (which, let’s be trustworthy, is why I hold the lie going yearly). Because the summer season goes on, harvesting my zucchini shortly turns right into a recreation of wack-a-mole. Regardless of my greatest efforts to pickle, grill, and even shave it right into a salad evening after evening, I can’t sustain.

On high of all that, the large problem with zucchini is that it may be fussy to cook dinner, and normally wants assist in the kitchen to style nice. Its gentle taste and watery texture can simply result in limp, soggy, and flavorless outcomes when not cooked correctly. This baked zucchini fries recipe is a refreshing, extremely snackable answer to that drawback.

Okay, so I’m totally conscious these usually are not “fries,” and I’m not a 5 yr previous who must be tricked into consuming her greens. However when these zucchini sticks are dredged in a Parmesan-laced panko coating and baked till crisp and golden exterior, they’re undeniably satisfying and excellent for dipping into its accompanying wealthy, dill-forward feta dip. To get to this nice we end result, we requested our Birmingham-based check kitchen colleague Julia Levy to methodically dredge batch after batch of zucchini sticks to give you crunchy zucchini fries that even a zucchini skeptic like myself would love.

Tricks to Assure Crunchy Zucchini Fries

Take away the watery seeds. As I famous above, zucchini is notoriously watery, so the largest problem is stopping moisture from sogging out the breadcrumb crust. Our answer: Lower the zucchini into spears and use a pointy knife or vegetable peeler to shortly take away the inside seed pulp, which is the wateriest a part of the fruit.

Pulse the panko and coat with oil. One other problem with baking zucchini fries within the oven is getting the outside crumb coating golden and crisp within the brief time it takes for the zucchini to cook dinner. We needed to discover a solution to pace up the browning time for the panko crumbs. Step one was pulsing the panko into finer crumbs. The smaller crumbs not solely cowl the zucchini extra evenly, however they cook dinner and crisp faster within the oven.

The opposite step we took to make sure a crisp coating is frivolously tossing the panko with extra-virgin olive oil (about 1 tablespoon oil per cup of panko) earlier than the zucchini is dredged within the combination. Coating the breadcrumbs with fats speeds even warmth switch from the oven throughout baking, giving the breadcrumbs simply the sting they wanted to brown shortly sufficient.

Add Parmesan to the crumb coating. The Parmigiano-Reggiano within the crumb combination not solely provides a wealthy, nutty layer of taste to the baked sticks, it creates a frico-like exterior across the zucchini, additional enhancing a crisp fried-like exterior shell as soon as baked.

Pair it with a cool and creamy dip. Like several good fry, these zucchini fries are greatest served with a dip. An herb-forward tangy feta and dill dip pairs effectively with the impartial taste of the zucchini. Making the dip is so simple as combining feta with yogurt in a meals processor with lemon, dill, garlic, and honey and blitzing till it is clean. I like to recommend making it first, and refrigerating it to thicken whereas making the zucchini fries.