How to season zucchinis
Queen of ratatouille and Mediterranean-flavored dishes, zucchini, its delicate flavors and characteristic melt-in-your-mouth melting texture pair easily with many other foods and seasonings. Here's our advice on how to make the most of zucchini in all your recipes.
Summary
What seasonings to use with zucchinis?
Tender and rather discreet, zucchinis are easy to season. Spices, herbs, aromatics or more complex blends, which seasonings do they go best with?
Which spices go well with zucchini?
The delicate flavors, softness and slight sweetness of zucchini go very well with a wide variety of spices such as:
- Cumin, which will give them plenty of flavor and fragrance,
- Paprika and its smoky, slightly spicy taste,
- Turmeric and its earthy, subtle, slightly bitter flavors that resemble
ginger, - The intensity, strong flavors and slight pungency of ground garlic and onion powder
, - Ras El Hanout and its great aromatic power, its very slight spiciness and its
little sweet taste, - Curry, the spice most used throughout the world, which will impart sweet flavors
and a little slightly tangy taste to the zucchini. There are several types of curry
more or less intense and spicy.
Our recipe idea with curry
Cook your zucchini like a chicken coconut curry or vegetable curry by
frying them with coconut milk, curry powder, salt and pepper. A creamy recipe with
full flavors.
The flavors of spices don't stand up well to overcooking: add your spices in the middle
of cooking or season your zucchini beforehand and cook them over medium heat to
preserve the power of their aromas.
Which herbs to use with zucchinis?
For harmonious, complementary flavors, choose herbs from the same region as the food being cooked. Thyme, rosemary, oregano, savory, tarragon, basil and marjoram will add fragrance and character to your zucchini. Add them halfway through cooking in the frying pan as well as in the oven, they will sublimate your zucchinis while giving them plenty of relief.
For a recipe with more oriental tones, season your zucchini with zaatar, a traditional Middle Eastern blend of herbs and spices composed of thyme, oregano, marjoram, cumin and coriander, which will give the zucchini plenty of fragrance, a hint of acidity and a salty touch.
Mint also goes very well with zucchini. For an original, fresh and crunchy salad, add chopped mint to a raw zucchini salad.
Our other ideas for seasoning zucchini: Jardin Intense crystallized herbs
Season your zucchini with Jardin Intense thyme and rosemary crunch. The subtle, balanced yet powerful fragrances of this combination of aromatic herbs combined with the strength of le Guérandais salt will powerfully spice up zucchini while leaving a delicate crunch under the tooth.
Crystallized aromatics are herbs and spices (thyme, rosemary, shallot, onion) crystallized in salt. Crystallizing herbs and aromatics with salt preserves and multiplies all their flavors while giving them a delicate touch of crunch.
Garden Intense crystallized aromatics are crystallized with Guérande salt. An intense, authentic natural sea salt, le Guérandais salt releases the powerful aromas of the herbs and aromatics it accompanies with every turn of the mill.
A powerful, fragrant and crunchy seasoning ideal for sublimating raw or cooked vegetables, fish and white meats and bringing out all their flavors, whether cooked or seasoned.
Le Guérandais Guérande Salt is a natural unrefined, unwashed, non-iodized and unbleached salt. It is harvested by hand by salt workers using an ancestral method in the Guérande salt marshes. Unrefined salt is salt that has not been chemically treated, and has retained all its natural benefits.
How to cook zucchinis?
Zucchini has a rather neutral taste due in part to its high water concentration.
Some tricks like choosing the right zucchini, cooking it and seasoning it allow you to magnify it and bring out its natural flavors.Choosing the right zucchini
As zucchini is a highly water-concentrated vegetable, choose a rather small zucchini: they contain less water, seeds and are crunchier than large zucchini.
It's also ideal to respect seasonality, buying and eating zucchini between June and September.
Cooking zucchini well
Zucchini can be enjoyed both raw and cooked. Raw, its flavors and crunchiness are well preserved and its benefits are preserved. Zucchini is very rich in potassium, manganese, copper, phosphorus, magnesium, iron and calcium.
If you want to eat it cooked, the ideal way to preserve its flavors is to steam or en papillote it. This will allow it to remain firm while cooking thoroughly.
Zucchini are very practical, however, and lend themselves very well to frying, baking, steaming, boiling or grilling. The key is not to overcook them in order to retain as much of their flavor and natural goodness as possible.
Choosing the right seasonings
The certain neutrality, softness and mellowness of zucchini go well with many types of seasoning. So you can easily season your zucchini with a light, lemony vinaigrette, a simple virgin sauce or even a seasoning with deeper, more assertive flavors like crystallized aromatics.
Like many foods, zucchini tend to go well with foods that come from the same geographical area as them. As zucchinis are often used in Mediterranean cuisine, they go very well with herbes de Provence.
Is it necessary to remove the skin from zucchinis?
In zucchini, it's the skin that has the most flavor and protects all its natural goodness and vitamins. So don't remove the skin from your zucchini!
If you wish, and if you're not a skin lover, you can peel every other strip, which will allow you to keep the taste while avoiding the slightly firmer texture of the skin.
A few recipe ideas to make the most of zucchini
Discover our 4 easy recipe ideas to cook and enjoy zucchini in all its forms.
Zucchini soup
A simple, creamy, comforting and flavorful soup recipe for 4 people
:
- 2 tablespoons crème fraîche
- 5 grams butter,
- 1 kg zucchini,
- 1 poultry stock cube,
- Garden Intense red onion crunch.
1) Peel the zucchinis if you wish and cut them into large cubes,
2) Place them in a saucepan with butter,
3) Add the stock cube and a glass of water, close and leave to cook.
4) Blend everything with fresh cream,
5) Add a few turns of the red onion crunch, and you're done!
Zucchini with tomatoes and rice
A crunchy, full-flavored pan for the whole family :
- 4 zucchini,
- 4 tomatoes,
- Olive oil,
- Garden Intense garlic and chive crunch.
1) Chop the zucchini and tomatoes and sauté in olive oil for
10 to 12 minutes, stirring occasionally,
2) Add a few turns of the garlic and chive crunch mill, which will season
and salt the vegetables,
3) Serve with rice.
Stuffed courgettes
A complete, gourmet, au gratin recipe for 4 people:
- 2 zucchini,
- 400 grams minced meat,
- 200 grams tomato coulis,
- 30 grams Emmental cheese,
- 2 tablespoons olive oil,
- 1 clove garlic,
- 1 onion,
- Garden Intense thyme and rosemary crunch.
1) Preheat your oven to 200 degrees.
2) Cut each zucchini in half lengthwise and, using a spoon, remove
their flesh and keep it separate,
3) Chop and mince the garlic and onion,
4) Fry the zucchini flesh in olive oil with the garlic and onion,
stirring occasionally,
5) Once they're colored, add the minced meat and brown everything.
6) Season with a few grindings of crunchy thyme and rosemary,
7) Fill the zucchini halves with the stuffing, cover with tomato coulis and
bake for 40 minutes.
8) A few minutes before the end of cooking, sprinkle with grated Emmental cheese and leave
grate.
9) Serve with rice and season again if necessary.
Raw zucchini salad
A recipe full of freshness and crunch:
- 3 zucchini,
- 200 grams of feta,
- 1 lemon,
- Olive oil,
- A few sprigs of mint,
- Garden Intense red onion crunch.
1) Start by chopping the mint and squeezing the lemon,
2) Cut the feta into small cubes,
3) Peel the zucchinis if you wish and slice them lengthwise
with a vegetable peeler.
4) Mix the zucchini, mint and feta,
5) Season with olive oil and lemon juice and sprinkle with a few turns of
red onion crunch.