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 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 🙁
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
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.
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…
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.
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
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
Grating and freezing it for the winter is a wonderful idea… So much easier to make zucchini bread then! 🙂
Oooh, I’d love one! I’ve just gotten into freezing and preserving, so I don’t have any tips yet.
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!
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
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
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 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!
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.
Would the grater be appropriate for carrots (for cake)?
Walter, it would be great for carrots! It does harder stuff particularly well. -Marisa
How timely! A friend is giving me some zucchini tonight!
I love me some microplane–I remember the horrors of zesting on a box grater. Shiver.
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.
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!
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
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.
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!
Unfortunately I lost all of my zucchini to blight as well. At least we made use of the blossoms before it hit.
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
Huh. I’d never thought to freeze grated zucchini. Sounds like an excellent idea.
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.
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!
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!
That grater looks awesome! I’d love to store some zucchini for the winter!
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…
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.
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.
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.
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.
ooooh exciting! i love zucchini, and good kitchen tools. win.
I love all things Microplane and could use another one!
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:
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’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…
Thanks for the giveaway. I’ve been following your blog for about a month now and it is great.
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 🙂
I love microplane graters! I’ve never thought of freezing squash–what a great idea!
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 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 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 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!
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 used some grated zucchini today in a quesadilla with cheese and black beans. Delish.
PS-I love microplane and would love this!
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 am so excited to try this method of carrying summer squashes past first frost. I have a nice sweet/sour pickle recipe (refrigerator style – so short lifespan) but other than that, we just grill saute, grill, bake, fry and fritter until we can stand no more. then i thake the really fat ones and make lasagne noodles out of ’em.
would love to try that new grater!
I’ve been freezing grated zucchini for years. Those ‘giant’ zucchini logs don’t scare me, and the fresh zucchini bread tastes great in January or February. I love new kitchen tools, so the grater would have a happy home.
Roberta
Great giveaway! I’d love to win. I grate and freeze zucchini also — it makes for great sweet & spicy zucchini bread during the fall months, and I add a lot of it to pasta sauces and salads.
I like to use zucchini in zucchini bread. Thanks for the give away!
I use it in zucchini breads, and put some in a veggie lasagna that I froze as well. Love your site!
I am definitely going to shred my extra summer squash now, thanks for the tip! And here’s hoping I win the grater…
Well … I had to throw out my grater. It was so old and rusty and I was afraid that I would grate my finger and need a tetanus shot. I do not have a recipe for zucchini, the only way my daughter and I like it is grilled…….. sorry. I am so dull.
I have been the victim of squash vine borer too many times. I’m too lazy of a gardener to do the suggested methods for dealing with it, so I now plant Tromboncino squash, a light green, mild summer squash that is resistant to the borer! Check it out: http://www.territorialseed.com/product/1100/220
The squash vine borer destroyed my squash plants too. At least I’ve got plenty from the CSA.
Ooh, I love Microplane, too! I’ve been getting lots of zucchini from the CSA and hope to freeze a bit for winter.
My troubles are the opposite of yours. Heaps of zucchini, and my grater just fell apart!
I’ve been needing a new grater. I love my Microplane zester; it does a number on citrus zest of course, but it’s also the perfect thing for shredding parmesan.
I agree – although pickled zucchini can be tasty, there’s nothing better than being able to whip up zucchini bread or pancakes throughout the winter. Yum!
Flattening out the filled bags before freezing (and laying them flat on the bottom of the freezer to harden) makes storing and finding so much easier.
Haven’t tried preserving zucchini though I do a lot of preserving. We like them halved, stuffed with pork mince flavoured with picked turnip, garlic, soy sauce and steamed as part of a Chinese meal.
Microplane huh? Not heard of it, but I seriously need an upgrade to my shakey box grader. It does have multiple settings on it, but I wanted to do sliced potatoes the other day and it wasn’t up for it. I do the same thing to my squash. It makes it so much easier to use later in the year. I’m really sorry about your squash plants. My pepper plants didn’t do well this year, but I have tomatoes out the ying yang. 🙂
I love Microplanes!
Sorry… no tips here… but I do love those Microplanes 🙂
Alas, I have no preservation tips — but I really want to try out the freezing grated courgette thing, that sounds incredibly handy. And I have a very good fine-grate Microplane that I use as a zester, so I’d be interested in trying out the coarse version!
gosh, i love kitchen gadgets! My squash never gets preserved, what I can’t eat I give away to eager neighbors 🙂
I grated some of mine into 3-cup amounts (that’s what my zucchini cake recipe calls for), and froze. I also sliced some into 1/4-inch rounds, blanched, and froze. These will be for putting into stir-fries, or hiding in spaghetti sauce in the winter. My plants had no buggy problems, but they got powdery mildew, which I’ve treated with a milk solution. I’m hoping they might come back from it and produce a few more zukes for me this summer.
Having lots of fun with the “End of the Garden” pickle recipe in the Ball Blue Book to help corral the runaway yellow squash crop! Ginger, dry mustard, mustard seed, cinnamon… another week or so on the shelf to let the flavors marry, and then I’m sure we’ll be right into them. Would love to win the coarse microplane grater!!
I love Zucchini bread. Truly a great way to get some nutrition for not much money!
I too put zucchini in the freezer or I dehydrate it. I also always try to put away a few jars of Hamburger Relish using zucchini instead of cucumbers. A famiy favorite..
My favorite way to preserve zucchini is to grate and freeze it too! We trick our kids into eating it with buttered noodles. For some reason, they can’t even tell there’s squash there. Another favorite recipe is the curry zucchini bread from 101cookbooks.com.
I steam 8 cups of it with a chopped onion and 1/2 can of Swanson’s chicken broth for 10-12 minutes, cool it, and stir in 2 cups of brown rice. In the middle of winter, I thaw and drain it well (really squish out the liquid) and finish off a Zucchini Rice Casserole from October 2002’s Cooking Light. Here is a link to the recipe:
http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=522093
There are so many wonderful comments I couldn’t get through them all!
One of my favorite things growing up was, not surprisingly, zucchini bread. The recipe includes crushed pineapple, and you can find many variations just by searching online.
When I was recently in New Zealand, a friend brought bags and bags of wild walnuts to our retreat center, and of course, since it was summer, I had to make zucchini bread.
I love experimenting with all kinds of flours, and most stores in New Zealand offer all kinds (eg., buckwheat, rice, quinoa, millet, etc.), so I used a combination of these for the recipe (what I write below as “gluten free flour”).
Of course, the wild walnuts were superb; their flavor is just incredible, esp. when compared to the average walnut you buy at the store…hmm… can I grow a walnut tree in Pennsylvania, and would all of the nuts be eaten by the ubiquitous squirrels?
Anyway, here’s the recipe:
Ingredients:
Mix these ingredients in one bowl:
3/4 cup pure, raw sugar (more if you’d like it to be more sweet)
2/3 cup unsweetened applesauce (may need more if the batter is too dry)
1/3 cup canola oil
3 eggs
2 teaspoons (or a little more) pure vanilla extract
Mix the following ingredients well in a separate bowl:
2 cups gluten-free flour mix (“Pam’s” is often used)
1/2 cup spelt flour
1/2 cup brown rice flour
1/3 cup oat bran
1 1/4 teaspoon guar gum
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon sea salt
3/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
Gently mix the dry and wet ingredients together until just blended. Add:
2 cups shredded zucchini
1 can, partly strained, crushed pineapple
1 cup chopped wild walnuts
Make sure everything is mixed together without over-mixing.
Put in two medium-size loaf pans, or make a larger loaf and use the extra to make muffins. Bake at 350 degrees fahrenheit (I think, while in NZ, I put the oven at 200 degrees celsius).
For the muffins, the time will be about 20 minutes, depending on how big they are.
For the loaf/loaves, the time again will depend on the size/s. For medium loaves, they may need 45 minutes; for large loaves, they may need up to an hour in the oven.
I test for doneness by seeing golden brown around the edges, and there is no “give” to the top/middle of the muffin/loaf.
Let the muffins/loaves rest in the pans for 10 minutes or so after you take them from the oven, and then transfer them to a rack to cool. These freeze well, too.
Sorry to hear about your zucchini plants being taken over by bugs. We’ve only harvested one zucchini this year, too, but hopefully, we’ll have a few more (from one plant).
We love our microplanes (the originals), too.
I’ve made lots of zucchini bread and frozen that, but never just the zucchini in bags. I have made zucchini relish (tastes just like pickle relish) with a recipe that takes 10 cups of zucchini – that one helps clear out the fridge. I could use a new grater though… Thanks!
I just shredded a bunch of zucchini for the freezer using my food processor. But that microplaner looks great. Count me in!
That is a great idea for prepping and storing zucchini!
I had the same problem w/ my zuchinni! I despise those dreaded critters! What can we do about them for next year?? Any suggestions??
My new favorite zucchini recipe is from the Moosewood Cookbook. Part of the fun is that they are called Zuc-canoes 🙂
A nice twist on stuffed zucchini–using a nice lemony-herb mixture, rather than the icky tomato and hamburg combo that my mother used to put into anything that didn’t move…
4 med Zucchini–cut lengthwise and scooped out to make your “canoe”, innards saved separately for the filling
1 Tblsp Olive oil
1 1/2 cups minced onion
1/2 pound mushrooms, diced
6 med cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 cups cooked rice
1 1/2 cups almonds (minced or ground)
3 Tblsp lemon juice
black pepper, cayenne, salt, minced fresh herbs (basil, parsley, thyme) all to taste
1 c grated swiss cheese (optional)
Saute onion in olive oil until soft, add in minced innards of the “canoes” and mushrooms and cook most of the water out. Add in garlic until fragrant. In a large bowl, mix rice and almonds, stir in lemon juice and cooked mixture. Season to taste with seasonings listed above. Fill the zucchini “canoes” with the mixture, top with grated cheese (if using), and bake in 350 oven for 30-40 mins until heated through and cheese is bubbly. Yum!
The Dreaded Squash Vine Borer! It got my zucchinis, then pumpkins. I even tried to do the “surgery” on the vines for a while…but everntually those little buggers got the best of my vines. Sob!
As I’m growing “the zucchini that’s not a zucchini” (portofino green summer squash, from the Territorial Seeds catalogue), I have become a fan of zucchini pancakes. Fabulous! They’re very simple–grate a zucchini or two (or three), grate some onion, squeeze all the liquid out of the veggies, add an egg or two (as needed), and enough flour to make it come together (probably 1/4 cup or so). Saute in hot oil & enjoy.
Oh, with the squash borer–try using reemay or another protective cover after you’ve seeded the squash and until they’re about 4 inches high. Option B: you can try beneficial nematodes. I’m sure there are other methods out there that would work. Good luck next year!
I love to make spicy squash/zucchini pickles.
I’ll give that a try! Just came home from the CSA with a ton of zucchini, but it’s too hot in Buffalo to bake zucchini bread or cook anything besides the briefest of sautees.
I’ve never tried freezing zuccini…will have to visit the farmers market and give it a try real soon.
This would be incredibly helpful to me, and your post is so timely. I am sorry about your squash, mine are doing poorly this year, but still getting some… which is good, because I have discovered several great uses for squash as a pasta substitute. I can hopefully get some at the farmers market to supplement my own puny squash plant, and freeze a bunch to have all winter… I hope I am the lucky winner!
Been waiting for something like this so I can throw actually grate not use a knife. I hope I win!
Zucchini bread or grilled zucchini with a dressing of olive oil, cumin, ed pepper flakes, lime juice, yum!
Oh, so sorry about the squash borers! I hate those things. I have pretty much given up on growing winter squash because of them, and I start my zucchini & summer squash under a row cover because of them.
I like to make zucchini chips in the dehydrator–just slice pretty thin (I use a thin sharp knife, but you could also use a mandoline), sprinkle with salt, and dry til they’re crispy. You can use other seasonings, too–lemon pepper is a favorite, and some people like garlic or onion salt–but I prefer the flavor of the zukes with just a little salt.
I’ve also had some very fine pickles made with zucchini instead of cucumber.
great idea to freeze the zucchini! i am new to food preservation and came across your site on the small measures column on design sponge! we use zucchini in everything – soup, pancakes, muffins, stir fry! i would love to win the grater – i totally need one! thanks for the great giveaway!
My first visit to this site (which was immediately bookmarked!) and there’s this fantastic giveaway. I too have microplane/grater love.
The easiest way I know how to serve zucchini, and the most delicious, is:
grate (!) a few zucchinis into colander. Sprinkle on a little salt, toss, and let sit in the sink to drain–about 15 minutes. Toss again and very gently squeeze with your hands.
Place in a bowl, add a few glugs of olive oil, a squirt of lemon and a few grinds from the peppermill. Toss again and serve. Extras, if you have the time/inclination: small handful of rough chopped roasted almonds and/or some shaved, good quality parm.
My husband and I also grate and freeze our summer squash. We just get more than we can use, and summer never seems like a good time to eat the hot dishes squash tastes best in. We do love to make squash bread though, and vegetable “chips.” We just slice squash, carrots, sweet potatoes and other veggies very thin (about 1/4 inch thick), coat evenly with oil, sprinkle with sea salt and then bake in the oven for a couple hours at 300 degrees. They are so delicious and much better for you than regular potato chips!
Funny story-a few days ago I was looking for a rhubarb jam recipe. I spent about 30-45 minutes on line looking for one that I thought would be good. Boring recipe after boring recipe. Then I saw one was from you and I knew it would be the one I made even before I clicked the link-and it was. The moment I saw it I slapped my forhead and thought “I should have known to look there first.” It was very very good! 🙂
I’ve not had good luck with freezing grated zucchini for breads, as they seem to get mushy. Maybe I didn’t drain them long enough, so I may give your method a try. The way I do successfully freeze zucchini is to slice into 1/4 inch rounds, blanch briefly, then put into ice water to stop the cooking, dry on a towel, freeze on a cookie sheet, then put into freezer bags. These work well for soups, casseroles, etc.
I could use the coarse grater, so count me in for the giveaway. Thanks!
I am fortunate to be blessed with a little TOO MUCH zuchinni, so this greater would come in very handy for the mass I need to can and freeze this month – I like to put grated zuchinni in my canned tomato sauce for extra quick spagetti.
I don’t have zucchini, but I like your suggestion of grating and freezing for later. This microplane would have a solid place in my kitchen as the official coleslaw carrot and apple grater. Yum!
I’ve been getting my zucchini at farm markets this year, and just tried the most delicious lemon zucchini blueberry muffin recipe I found at mayamade… I’ll have to freeze some zucchini so I can make them this winter too!
Oh this grater would be fabulous! I love, love, love microplane products. Just last week I grated zucchini into 2 cup ziplocks and froze them. This is my first year trying to put up food for winter – I can’t wait to do more! My friend makes a wonderful stuffed squash dish with a Mexican twist: a mixture of chorizo, ground pork, raisins, almonds, the insides of the zucchinis, and some spices, topped with canned red chili sauce and cojita.