Are you awash in squash? Read on to learn how to freeze zucchini and make the most of your bounty!
Had it not been for the destructive maws of the squash vine borer, my fridge would be bursting with zucchini at the moment. Sadly, all of my squash plants (zucchini and patty pan) succumbed to that pesky bug, so my entire summer yield was just a single, 12-inch zucchini. However for those of you who are currently awash in squash, let’s talk a bit about how to preserve that which you can’t possibly eat right now.
This might shock you, but my favorite way to “put up” squash does not include a jar or a trip through a boiling water canner. Nope, when it comes to the summer squashes, I turn to a sturdy grater, zip top bags and my freezer. I roughly grate the zucchini, press out a bit of its liquid and measure it out into two and four cup portions. Packed into bags and labeled, that squash then becomes part of quick breads, soups, pasta sauces and even zucchini fritters all throughout the year.
If I only have a few zucchini to shred, I use a simple box grater to break down my zukes. If there are more that need to be processed, the food processor and a coarse shredding disc are the best choice.
And that’s how to freeze zucchini!
I was craving something with citrus and made a very tasty Lemon Zucchini “bread” although it was more like cake and we ate it for dessert! I look forward to freezing some for winter, I didn’t grow my own but everybody else has so much it’s cheap or free around here.
I used some grated zucchini today in a quesadilla with cheese and black beans. Delish.
PS-I love microplane and would love this!
OOOHHHH!! Looks like an awesome tool! I have a small microplane that I use for zesting, and I absolutely love it! This little ditty would make my life so much easier!! Pick me! Pick me!
I am definitely going to try some of these yummy recipes! I have just started to use a vacuum sealer to save zuchs, crook necks and eggplants. This is my first foray into zuchs and am loving it. I also love microplane and use my zester for lot of things!
I also like to just thinly slice the zucchini and freeze in bags. It makes for great gratins later in the year. And I made pickles this year as well, those are getting better every day!
I love the tip about freezing grated, pre-squeezed zucchini; I would have thought it would just fall apart in the freezer, but I guess not!
I like to do Vietnamese style quick pickles with zucchini, but that isn’t much of a long-term-storage-deal. Yummy, though!
I do the same thing with my zucchini except I freeze them in my silicone muffin liners which hold a 1/4 c, I find this easier for baking small amounts for my husband and myself… I should probably freeze some in larger quantities now that you mentioned zucchini fritters!!
I love microplane graters! I’ve never thought of freezing squash–what a great idea!
My winter squashes got hit by the borer too… ugh! I’ve been getting a pretty nice harvest of zucchini and tomboncino squashes. We grate them up and put them in the freezer like you do. And then there is zucchini bread, zucchini pancakes, zucchini muffins, marinated zucchini, fresh zucchini slices with a sprinkle of salt, zucchini-mango chutney, zucchini pie (like apple pie, but with zucchini chunks), julienned zucchini used in place of spaghetti…. The possibilities are endless 🙂
Thanks for the giveaway. I’ve been following your blog for about a month now and it is great.
i’ve been making a zucchini-cheddar-dill bread with extra zucchini, but i can’t eat it fast enough. i will totally be freezing some now that i’ve seen this, and i’d love to win that grater…
You know, I really don’t like zucchini in it’s whole form, but I love it in breads and things. I suspect I would like it cooked as fritters too–maybe with a nice fried egg on top?
I love microplane too, but who doesn’t! I also love grated zucchini in my zucchini relish! I put up 24 pints this year because last year my family almost disowned me when we ran out in March!
Check it out:
I love all things Microplane and could use another one!
ooooh exciting! i love zucchini, and good kitchen tools. win.
The easiest way I know to fix zucchini is to slice it in half lengthwise. Then score it across about every half inch. Spray with “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” spray, sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese and shake on some Italian seasoning mix. About 6 to 8 minutes in the microwave produces a great summer side dish.
When I just can not get through summer squash, I slice them up and roast them in the oven. Then I manage to do a couple things with the roasted squash before giving up and needing to get through that in a hurry. And then I make quiche. Just bake a pie shell, jam it full of roasted vegetables and maybe some cheese, and then cover with as much egg/cream as will take you up to the lip of the crust. It’s always amazing! And you can cook it at night, when it’s cooler, and just warm it slightly in the microwave so you aren’t heating the apartment when you want a slice.
And, yes, I would love to be the lucky one to win the grater. I swear by Microplanes.
i used to use a grater like this back in my server days (they remind me of mandolins a bit), and i’ve been looking for a good one since. i think what i love about flat graters (as opposed to box graters) is the ability it has to take tasks from the kitchen to the table. who doesn’t love freshly grated cheese over their soup or salad or chocolate shavings over their ice cream? any kitchen utensil that makes cooking and eating interactive is a win in my book.
I also freeze grated zucchini but I grate it using a very, very old “salad shooter” with a very skinny top loading feeder that presses down onto a horizontal cone roatary grinder. The other way I like to “store” zucchini is to freeze it already baked into mini bread loafs. Most recipes keep quite well if double wraped and there is nothing like the instant smell of fresh baked zuccini bread in January.
Perfect timing! I didn’t even think about preserving summer squash, but this is a great idea. I wonder if grated zucchini is good in quiche…
That grater looks awesome! I’d love to store some zucchini for the winter!
also another yummy summer zucchini recipe is to simply boil grated zucchini in milk with a clove of garlic, one soft puree with a stick blender and salt and pepper to taste. It makes a great warm or cold soup.
I’m going to have to go raid my friend’s garden!
One of those graters would be perfect! We have a box grater but I hate using it because it’s a pain to clean.
Sadly, this year I only got a single round zucchini. But my tomato plants are thriving!
I’ve been craving this one for a little while lately and it would be super nice to have a nice coarse grater! I find you can just add an insane amount of veggies to this and it incorporates so nicely. yum yum! I need the heat to go away so I can use my oven again!
Tamarind Turkey loaf (my own recipe)
I imagined this one night with the random ingredients in my fridge.
This is definitely not the meatloaf I grew up with!
I don’t have specific amounts for my ingredients yet, it’s fun to improvise and I have found that there is no such thing as too many veggies in this loaf! You could also try making these into balls as an appetizer for a party, and have some tamarind sauce on hand as a dip.
1 pkg ground turkey
1 egg
1 zucchini, grated (2 cups)
1 or 2 carrot, grated
1 red pepper, diced
grated ginger (to your taste more makes it spicier)
crushed garlic
minced shallots
zest and juice from 1 or 2 limes (depending on how limey you feel)
chopped cilantro
2 tsp fish sauce
Sriracha hot sauce to taste
tamarind date sauce (a big dollop for the mix and use more to coat the top) (use instead of ketchup or tomato paste in traditional meatloaf, it can be found at Indian grocery stores and at asian markets or wholefoods)
1 beaten egg
breadcrumbs to hold it all together
mix it all together and make a long log form. I always use a ton of vegetables, then make a few small flattish logs since I can’t wait for it to finish cooking and figure smaller logs cook faster. I coat the logs with tamarind date sauce to give it a tasty finish.
Bake at 400ºF for about 50ish min until internal temp of loaf is 170ºF. Smaller loaves cook faster so cook to internal temp of 170ºF.
Huh. I’d never thought to freeze grated zucchini. Sounds like an excellent idea.
Hmmm, I tried grating and freezing last year and wasn’t happy with it. The defrosted zucchini seemed too slimy. Is there a trick? I am about to make some zucchini pickles, and I already have a loaf of zucchini bread in the freezer. I was also thinking about making a couple small zucchini lasagna’s and freezing them, though I don’t think my freezer can hold it.
Vicki, I’ve found that it’s important to squeeze some of the liquid out of the shredded zucchini before freezing. But, no matter what you do, it is going to change texture some after being frozen. -Marisa
Unfortunately I lost all of my zucchini to blight as well. At least we made use of the blossoms before it hit.
I spent a lot of time grating some zucchini last night! I found the world’s largest zucchini recently, and stuffed one side of it with couscous and tomatoes. The other side I grated and made into zucchini bread- had enough for almost 3 loaves!
I don’t have the recipe on hand, but my mom makes a mean zucchini bread. I’m sure it’s not especially different from any other given zucchini bread recipe, but it always just tastes better, in that my-mommy-made-this sort of way I guess.
Our farmer’s market had yellow and green striped zucchini last time (unfortunately I didn’t get any- full day of errands in 100degree heat, didn’t want to think of what they would look like at the end of the day!). Hopefully they will have more tomorrow! And for the real question— if you have such a small kitchen, how big is your freezer? you write about various things that you freeze, but where do you put it???
Michelle, my freezer isn’t particularly large, but it’s packed to the gills. We bought a new fridge last summer in large part because I desperately needed a larger freezer. One of the reasons I started canning was that I couldn’t fit another thing in the freezer. -Marisa
Having recently had an accident with my food processor that involved an ER visit, a MicroPlane sounds like a nice, low-tech kitchen gadget until I get over my fear of frighteningly sharp disk blades.
Can’t wait to put up some zukes for breads, muffins, pasta, lasagna, and fritters in the winter!
I just can’t bring myself to thin the plants in the spring, so we usually have 6 or 7 BUSHES every year. Translation: zucchini for breakfast, zucchini for lunch, zucchini for dinner. A favorite at our house is shredded zucchini sauteed with garlic and then scrambled with eggs. Pile all this into hot corn tortillas with cheese and salsa.
I love me some microplane–I remember the horrors of zesting on a box grater. Shiver.
How timely! A friend is giving me some zucchini tonight!
Would the grater be appropriate for carrots (for cake)?
Walter, it would be great for carrots! It does harder stuff particularly well. -Marisa
Zucchini is one of my favorite vegetables. Frying it up in a pan or adding it to salads is a great way of eating it, but I can tell the stands at the farmers market are dying to give it away. I bought a huge one to make zucchini bread, and would love to grate some and freeze it for future uses. I’m thinking it would be fun to pickle it as well.
I didn’t get around to growing zucchini in my garden this year, which I regret. I’ll be buying mine from the farmer’s market on the weekends. For sure going to try grating and freezing some for the winter, thanks!
Well, I haven’t had to battle pesky bugs, but that’s only because I sadly don’t have a garden plot of my own. I moved to my current place in mid-summer, so I didn’t have time to cultivate much beyond some plants in window sills. Fortunately, my local farmers market keeps me well supplied with zucchini (and many other fruits and veggies), and I’ve had a glorious time finding new recipes and different ways to use all the produce I’ve snatched up. I think my favorite zucchini recipe is a cheesy casserole I found on allrecipes.com. Yum!
I was given a “zuchini brownie” recipe, but really I think it is much more like a coffee cake.
Ingredients:
2 eggs
1/2 C vegetable oil
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 C sugar
2 c all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 c dutch processed cocoa powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 c shredded zuchinni
1 c chopped walnuts
Combine wet ingredients, combine dry, combine both, put it in a cake pan and Bake for 35 minutes -375 degrees.
Mmm, sounds yummy! -Marisa
Just discovered foodinjars and I am loving it! I am about to attempt either pickles of blueberry jam as soon as I get into the kitchen and stop wasting time on this infernal machine! It’s my first time canning (why call it canning and not jarring?) so I will be following your recipe very closely. Thanks for the great info and recipes.
Aww, thanks! So glad to hear you like the site. Honestly, I don’t know why the word canning took off where the word jarring did not. Just one of those crazy quirks of life. -Marisa
We LOVE zucchini! In addition to the ever-popular bread and muffins, we make baked zucchini with passata (basically tomato sauce), zucchini fritters (poor man’s crab cakes), and for long-term storage you can’t get better than zucchini pickles. Simply replace cucumber slices with zucchini slices (sans seeds) in your pickle recipe. A group of avid zucchini fans at my workplace got together and pooled their recipes into a Word document. I’d gladly mail it you if you like, just email me and I’ll reply with the Massive Ammount of Zucchinie Recipes!
Oooh, I’d love one! I’ve just gotten into freezing and preserving, so I don’t have any tips yet.
Grating and freezing it for the winter is a wonderful idea… So much easier to make zucchini bread then! 🙂
I am new to preserving and canning. Just found this website and read through all the posts this week. Thanks for all the tips and ideas, I am learning a lot!
Thanks! I’m happy to hear that you’re finding FIJ useful! -Marisa
I love summer squash, though my very favorite way to eat them is grilled, with a little teriyaki sauce. Which doesn’t lend itself to preserving, but is definitely one of the pleasures of the summer table.
Marisa, that sounds so, so good. I want some right now! -Marisa
Dear Marisa,
I do zucchini in my baking. It’s adding another veggie without anyone knowing. Also I like to do a pan fry (about 1″of oil) zucchini and potates with a little onion and if you like a egg in the morning.
The garter would be great to win.
Oh yes! I too love to grate and freeze zucchini for the winter. So versatile… That new microplane grater sounds amazing. I don’t know how I ever lived without my zester…
my zucchini have nearly displaced us in the house, our crop was quite good this year. i’ve put up some via pressure canning, to make squash casserole with this winter. i’ve also put up some in the freezer, grated just like you do, for the christmas time zucchini breads.
I have found the best preservation for zuchinni is to dehydrate it. It makes wonderful little “chips” to eat for a snack, toss some in soup and they reconstitute perfectly. I have not used it dried in breads or baking-it would probably need to be soaked in some water first.
I also pickle it-just like a cucumber. And I enjoy it just as much as cucumber pickles. It gets a little softer than cukes, but in February it tastes wonderful. 🙂
Tara, that’s a fantastic idea! Someday, I’m really going to have to get a dehydrator. Maybe when I eventually get a larger kitchen (who knows when that may be). -Marisa
I have the world’s worst grater! Seriously time to upgrade. I am loving the idea of zucchini fritters in February. I think I might need to give the grate and freeze a try! Sorry that your squash all bit the dust 🙁