It won’t be much longer that we can enjoy fresh-from-the-garden zucchini. Maybe that is a good thing, depending on how much of it you have eaten already or how much you like the stuff. I can eat squash roasted in a 400 degree oven with garlic or stir fried with onions, until the cows come home, but Toby gets a haunted look when summer squash appears on the table for the third or fourth time in a week.
As it happens, Barbara Benz, who hails from Ellicott City, Maryland, is visiting here with her daughter Baily this week as a WWOOFer (World Wide Opportunities in Organic Farming) volunteer, and she whipped out a tasty little wrinkle in the zucchini department: crusty zucchini chips.
Thinly sliced zucchini, dipped in bread crumbs and Parmesan or Romano cheese, and baked in a hot oven on parchment paper until they are golden, make a dandy appetizer or even vegetable side dish. Or, I suppose, if you made enough of them, your whole dinner. You can dunk them in sauce if you want, but we just cleaned the plateful straight up with a little salt and pepper sprinkled on them.
It is too easy a recipe not to try. Use medium sized zucchinis because the big ones will make slices too big and floppy to handle, and small ones will make slices too little to fiddle with. We use freshly grated Romano because I don’t usually buy already grated stuff and I never buy grated cheese that includes cellulose in the ingredient list.
It occurs to me that you could add herbs or other seasonings to taste such as garlic, basil, an Italian seasoning mix, chipoltle powder—whatever you like. The parchment paper does a great job of keeping the chips from sticking to the baking pan. Eat them while they are hot—they can get a little soggy if they sit around too long.
- Medium zucchini, three to four inches in diameter
- Olive or vegetable oil
- Bread crumbs or Panko
- Grated Parmesan or Romano cheese
- Seasonings to taste
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
- Spread a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Slice the zucchini in slices about a quarter of an inch thick.
- Toss the slices with oil lightly dribbled on them, but sufficient to cover them both sides.
- Mix equal parts of crumbs and cheese, and stir in optional seasonings, and put on a plate.
- Press the slices into the crumb and cheese mixture both sides, and lay on the baking sheet. Mix more crumb and cheese mixture as needed.
- Bake for twenty minutes and check for browning on the bottom and golden color on the top. Bake until they can be removed fairly easily from the parchment paper.
- Serve them immediately.