Get ready to turn plain old zucchini into something fabulous! Even my picky 4-year-old, who has never voluntarily eaten zucchini in her life, couldn’t get enough of these “chips” tonight. I was across the table trying to hold in my excitement (and shock) as she was busy chowing down. This might just be the perfect way to introduce zucchini to a child
that’s never had it before, and it could even work on those picky husbands too! After your child gets a good “first impression” of this veggie he/she might be willing to try it other ways as well. And don’t feel like you need to go “light” on the olive oil when you are making this recipe. Some unrefined natural fats can be a good addition to your diet. For more info on oils check out our post entitled “Mini-Pledge Week 10: No Refined Oils.
Zucchini Chips
Ingredients
- 2 medium sized zucchinis
- 3 eggs
- 1 ½ cups whole-wheat breadcrumbs (I found 100% whole-wheat panko breadcrumbs with a short list of ingredients at Earth Fare or you could make them yourself)
- ½ cup grated parmesan cheese, plus more for garnish
- Olive oil
- Salt and pepper, to taste
Directions
- Thinly slice zucchini into 1/8” round pieces.
- Beat eggs in a shallow bowl.
- Using a small food processor (or a mortar and pestle) process the breadcrumbs, grated cheese, and a couple dashes of salt & pepper together until fine. Put the breadcrumb mixture in a shallow bowl.
- Pour a thin layer of olive oil in the bottom of a medium to large sauté pan and turn the heat to medium. Let it heat up while you start preparing the zucchini.
- Make an assembly line in the following order: raw zucchini slices, beaten egg, breadcrumb mixture, and empty plate.
- With one hand (which will be your “wet” hand) coat a few of the zucchini slices with the egg and shake off the excess. Drop those pieces on top of the breadcrumb mixture and using your other “dry” hand coat them with breadcrumbs. Shake off the excess breadcrumbs and transfer the coated zucchini slices to the clean plate.
- As soon as you have enough zucchini slices breaded to make a single layer across the bottom of the pan, slide them in the oil to start cooking.
- Meanwhile, start coating the next batch of zucchini, but check the stove after 2 or 3 minutes to see if the bottom of the zucchini is turning golden brown. Once they are brown flip them over and add more olive oil if necessary to keep the bottom of the breaded zucchini “wet.” Once both sides are golden brown transfer them to a paper towel lined plate and keep warm.
- Repeat process until all the zucchini are cooked. Arrange them on a serving platter, garnish with Parmesan cheese, and enjoy!
Yield: 4 – 6 side servings
You might also like: Whole-Wheat Zucchini Bread
We do something similar but call them zucchini fries. I bake them and my kids LOVE them. They also LOVE to help me assemble, though it gets a bit messy
. I’ll have to try these with all my zucchini and squash that I’m growing in my garden.
Can I get the recipe for your zucchini fries? Thanks!
I love fried zucchini, and haven’t had it in sooooo long! Going to make this tomorrow! Eating ” real food” has been such a challenge, but we all feel so much better!
We do this with summer squash, but I bake them! They come out like yummy chips and my daughter devours them. We’re going to do this with zucchini this summer, now.
I’ll still bake them to avoid the extra oil. Thanks for the idea!! I don’t know why I didn’t think of trying it with zucchini!LOL
What are the baking instructions? How long, and at what temperature?
We make something similar but we broil them, and we do not include cheese – instead we add middle eastern spices and mix olive oil in the breadcrumb mixture.
When it comes to things like this via REAL food: zucchini chips, homemade chicken nuggets, “french fries”, I’ll spend a Sunday afternoon prepping, lightly deep frying (just a little oil in the pan so the crumbs stick), and then freeze. On a night I feel like ‘cheating’, I’ll come home and bake up some of these goodies rather than visit a drive thru. I’m always thankful and it’s usually around 20 minutes to reheat! Recently, I made corn fritters and they were deeeeee-lish when pulled from the freezer.
Thank you so much for posting this. I was just wondering today how to make homemade chicken fingers, ect. ahead and freeze.
Not sure if you saw it yet, but I also have a chicken finger/nugget recipe: http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2010/10/14/recipe-homemade-chicken-nuggets/
These can be frozen after they are cooked, and it is such a convenient dinner once they are made!
Baked (not fried) zucchini ? Try this
http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/oven_fried_zucchini.html Yum! My non-zuke eaters love it!
MMM those look so yummy!!! I recently read that olive oil is toxic when heated too hot or used for frying. So I did more research and everything I read says that’s true. So you should use grapeseed, coconut, safflower, sunflower, etc. for frying or sauteing at high heat. Here’s a good resource for which cooking oils to use. http://www.examiner.com/vegetarian-food-in-detroit/cooking-with-olive-oil-at-high-heat-can-be-toxic
I use safflower and I love it! It’s light and doesn’t add any flavor to what you’re frying.
I’ve heard that as well about olive oil, and I am not sure if you noticed this recipe calls for medium heat (not high heat). Some of the other oils you mentioned like grapeseed are unfortunately refined oils that we try to avoid. Here’s the link to our post about oils: http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2011/05/14/mini-pledge-week-10-no-refined-oils/
I didn’t know that about grapeseed oil, that’s disappointing. Great post about refined oils. thanks!
I know this is an old post, but it is possible to find unrefined grapeseed oil. Its a bit pricey, but can be done if you really want it.
I finally found 100% whole wheat panko as well. I used it when I made crab cakes last Thursday and no one noticed. Win!
Yum! I looove zucchini.
These sound great! Our youngest son loves hibachi-style zucchini, but our oldest turns up his nose at most veggies. Maybe this will convince him to try it out.
We use Ian’s whole-wheat panko breadcrumbs. They are delicious!
I’ve never seen whole wheat panko! I will have to look for that in my local stores. Great post!
I found some at whole foods
Sounds good! I love just snacking on raw zucchini circles, but my son wants nothing to do with it. Bet he’d eat these!
this recipe looks great! would it be ok for me to share in my co-op’s reader? we’re doing an eat local challenge from september through october, and want to share as many recipes that would utilize local ingredients as possible… this would be a huge hit, i’m sure! of course, i’d credit your fabulous blog!
You can definitely share…thanks for helping to spread the word!
I struggle with my kids eating certain vegetables and this looks like an awesome recipe. Off to the farmer’s market tomorrow and I will be getting zucchini for this recipe. My husband and I decided that several times a week, we will introduce a new vegetable (one the kids don’t eat) prepared a new way. Here’s one and we will find some other goodies at the market as well. Thanks.
Good for you and don’t ever give up on them! Sometimes kids have to try new things dozens and dozens of times before they warm up to it.
Love the idea of whole wheat panko on these…and what a great appetizer to bring to a bbq!
I used to hate zucchini as a child because we only had it cooked one way. I enjoy it now, and these look delicious and kid-friendly. They should be easy enough to adapt to be dairy free (remove the cheese), egg free (maybe I’ll use rice milk for dipping) and gluten free (I could substitute gf breadcrumbs or use a cornmeal coating). I’ll definitely be trying some variation on this recipe.
Jenna
I would love to know how your variations come out.
Yum! I am going to try these. We recently planted a garden at my school and I have been one of the teachers overseeing it during the summer. As a result, I have a plethora of zucchini in my fridge that I need to do something with soon. This is it!
Fried zucchini is also yummy with a squeeze of lemon instead of cheese. My sister loves it with both lemon and cheese! My Italian grandmother always made big batches of the stuff during Aug. & Sept. with my grandfather’s annual bumper crop of zucchini. She also made fried eggplant, fried cauliflower (parboil whole head, cool, and cut into florets before dipping in egg), and fried artichoke hearts (thaw and thoroughly pat dry frozen hearts). My cousins, my siblings, and I devoured them as soon as they were cool enough to pop into our mouths. Makes me hungry just thinking about it!
Yummy! We *love* fried zucchini around here too.
My new favourite cooking oil is unrefined virgin organic coconut…sooooo yummy and it doesn’t burn as easily as olive oil does. Thanks for sharing your recipes.
Blessings,
Camille
Made this off your recipe, but a larger batch.
They didn’t even have time to cool down before we had eaten them. The parm really gives it a nice undertone. Thanks for the recipe! XD
Made these tonight! Yummy! Thank you for a recipe I need to use up these zucchinis from my CSA share
Tried something just like this recently and my 6 yr old would not even touch them, sigh…
Made a baked version of these tonight. Skipped the eggs and used milk instead. My 5 and 3 year olds gobbled them up! I have never gotten them to eat zucchini before so this was a great introduction.
Gluten-free ideas: instead of breadcrumbs, try either GF breadcrumbs, organically-made potato chips (not non-processed, but still pretty healthy), GF flour mix, cornmeal, or almond flour for those on SCD. Omitting cheese altgoether will make it CF.
[...] moments. I got off work early on Wednesday and came home ready to make Coconut Chicken Satay and Zucchini Chips. Now, Austin had just made kabobs on the grill last week… At the time, I looked at him funny [...]