I’ve been serving zucchini in some form or another for years. We even grew it one summer. Yet, my children have never touched zucchini, at least until I made these zucchini fritters. The key to these delicious crispy zucchini fritters is covering them in panko breadcrumbs before cooking them.
Zucchini fritters are so simple to make, and they don’t take long to cook, which makes them perfect for a hot evening. They also reheat well if there are any leftovers.
Table of contents
- Why you’ll love feta zucchini fritters
- Ingredients to make zucchini feta fritters
- Expert tips from a Registered Dietitian for offering zucchini to picky eaters
- How to make zucchini fritters recipe
- How to remove water from zucchini
- What to eat with zucchini fritters
- Keep offering foods your kids don’t eat
- Sunny Side Up Nutrition podcast
- More blog posts you’ll love
- Podcast episodes
Why you’ll love feta zucchini fritters
- They’re another way for you to offer zucchini to your child. Serve these with your child’s favorite dip alongside.
- Zucchini fritters are a filling main dish with a salad and bread, and they also make a great side dish.
- They’re a fun way to use up all that zucchini you find at the farmer’s market in late summer and early fall.
- Zucchini fritters taste great all year long. You don’t have to wait for summer to make them since zucchini is readily available year-round.
Ingredients to make zucchini feta fritters
- Zucchini
- Egg
- All-purpose flour
- Feta cheese
- Fresh basil
- Fresh oregano
- Salt and freshly ground pepper
- Olive oil for cooking the zucchini fritters
- Panko bread crumbs if you like crispy zucchini fritters
Expert tips from a Registered Dietitian for offering zucchini to picky eaters
Kids need to see food up to 20 times before they try it. For some kids, it’s many more times than that. One of my teens still doesn’t eat zucchini, but one does now.
It’s helpful to offer food in different forms, and I definitely have done that, too. I’ve often felt like throwing in the towel and just assuming they don’t like this vegetable and never will. There have been times over the years that I’ve felt SO frustrated that they haven’t even taken the tiniest taste!
It’s hard to resist the urge to coax a child to try different foods, and I’ve had years of practice. I feel your pain!
Offering food in different forms gives everyone different opportunities to try foods. For example, zucchini fritters, zucchini corn pasta, and roasted zucchini each have zucchini in a different form.
My daughter was more open to the zucchini fritters, which then led her to try the zucchini corn pasta. She still doesn’t eat roasted zucchini.
Next, I’m going to try zucchini bread. This may help my other daughter try zucchini. She has never liked it in any form, but I haven’t tried offering zucchini bread.
The first time I made this zucchini fritters recipe, I served the fritters as a side with pesto pasta (that I know everyone likes) and a salad. I just put them on a plate and placed them on the table with a serving utensil so everyone could help themselves.
This way there was NO PRESSURE for anyone to try them. I knew everyone could fill up on other parts of the meal. If there’s no pressure to try new food, kids may be more likely to try it.
How to make zucchini fritters recipe
1. Grate the zucchini.
2. Place the grated zucchini in a mesh strainer over a bowl. Add the salt and allow to rest for 15 minutes.
3. After 15 minutes, give the zucchini about 4 good squeezes to wring out the liquid.
4. Discard the liquid extracted from the grated zucchini. Mix all the other ingredients together.
5. Form the zucchini batter into 8 patties. If you want smaller fritters, form 16 small patties.
How to remove water from zucchini
There’s more than one way to drain zucchini. But I prefer to grate it, place it in a fine mesh strainer over a bowl and then sprinkle the zucchini with salt.
After adding the salt, I let the shredded zucchini rest for about 20 minutes. Then comes the fun part, remove water from the zucchini.
You want to squeeze as much water out of the zucchini as you possibly can. It will take a few squeezes of the grated zucchini to remove all the water.
Kids will love to squeeze the water from zucchini. It’s a great opportunity for kids to help in the kitchen or you can save the fun for yourself!
You need to remove water from zucchini for the zucchini fritters otherwise they’ll be soggy.
What to eat with zucchini fritters
If you’re wondering what to eat with zucchini fritters, the options are really endless. Serve feta zucchini fritters with sour cream or tzatziki or with your child’s favorite sauce.
Another option is to serve them with this Spinach Basil Pesto from fellow dietitian and blogger Bucket List Tummy.
Another suggestion for what to eat with zucchini fritters is to serve them as a main dish with bread and salad or as a side. Zucchini fritters go well with just about anything, even boxed mac and cheese and chicken tenders.
Still wondering what to serve with zucchini fritters? I serve them along with pesto pasta or other quick and easy meals. These feta zucchini fritters also go well with fish like baked salmon with Dijon mustard or a store-bought rotisserie chicken or chicken roasted at home.
After I made them the first time, my 16-year-old suggested I coat them with bread crumbs so they’d be nice and crispy. What a great idea! She was right! I like them both ways, with just a slight preference for crispy zucchini fritters.
Keep offering foods your kids don’t eat
The moral of the story here is to KEEP OFFERING! If you read the opening paragraph (no worries if you didn’t! Most of the time I skim blog posts.), you’ll remember my kids are TEENAGERS who had never eaten zucchini. One of them has now eaten zucchini at least 6 times in the weeks since first trying a zucchini fritter! DON’T GIVE UP!
What food have you offered for years without anyone trying it?
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Zucchini Fritters
Zucchini FrittersIngredients
- 1 lb 2 medium zucchini
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt or 1/2 teaspoon table salt plus more to taste
- 1 teaspoon fresh basil chopped
- ½ teaspoon fresh oregano chopped
- ¾ cup crumbled feta cheese
- 1 egg
- ½ cup all purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- Freshly ground black pepper
- Olive oil for cooking the fritters
- *Optional: ¾ cup panko bread crumbs for coating the fritters before cooking
Instructions
- Wash the zucchini and trim off the ends. Grate each zucchini on the large holes of a box grater.
- (Or you can use the grater blade on a food processor). Place the grated zucchini in a mesh colander set over a bowl. Sprinkle with the salt and mix with your hands to distribute the salt. Let sit for at least 20 minutes. (The salt will draw the water out of the zucchini).
- While the zucchini rests, chop the basil and oregano and mix together with the flour and baking powder in a medium bowl.
- Once 20 minutes has passed, wring out the zucchini by squeezing handfuls of it at a time. (This is a fun activity for kids if you have them). You’ll get a lot of water out! Give each handful of zucchini a few really good squeezes.
- Taste the zucchini to see if it needs more salt and add more if needed.
- Add the wrung out zucchini to the flour and herb mixture. Add the egg and crumbled feta along with a few turns of freshly ground pepper and mix gently until combined.
- Add about 3 tablespoons of olive oil to a frying pan (I used a cast iron pan) over medium high heat. While the pan is heating, form the mixture into small cakes and set aside on a plate. (You can also just drop about a ¼ cup at a time into the heated frying pan if you don’t want to form them into cakes).
- Cook on each side until golden brown (3-5 minutes each side). Remove the fritters from the pan and place them on a paper towel lined plate for a few minutes. If you’d like to keep them warm while you finish cooking all the batter, place them on a ¼ sheet pan in a 250F oven.
Delightful side dish
My previous fritter recipe used wheat flour. Since our guest strongly prefers gluten free cooking, corn FLOUR was substituted. Mixed in onion powder, garlic with parsley, baking powder, pepper and salt into flour.
Adding dry ingredients into egg-zucchini blend resulted in a very dry batter.
Everything fried up nice and brown with 3 minutes per side. The oven was already at 350 as the fish main dish was just finishing. Only 5 minutes in the oven they were cooked in the middle. Whew what a busy kitchen tonight.
Results were delicious!
Toppings were sour cream mixed with Greek yogurt or apple sauce. More yum
Hi Eileen,
Thank you for your message! I’m glad to know that the recipe works with a gluten free flour. Good idea to finish them in the oven.