Follow One Golden Rule When Cooking Zucchini For The Best Results

When it's time to harvest zucchini in the summer and your stock is overflowing with the prolific veggie, it's time to process and cook it up. But cooking zucchini properly is easier said than done. The water-filled vegetable is prone to going floppy and turning to mush if overcooked. In many ways, cooking zucchini well is similar to cooking a steak well. This means you need to buy a properly sized zucchini; prepare it correctly, depending on your cooking method, and treat it with care, as it can be ruined quickly. Thankfully, we have expert help and have one golden rule to follow when cooking zucchini for the best results: high heat.

Yep, according to chef Christina Miros, who hails from Gordon Ramsay's "Next Level Chef," on how to cook zucchini perfectly, we know that high heat is the single most important element to making a great zucchini recipe. Yes, sometimes it's that simple. Just like cooking a great steak (or a zucchini steak). Get a pan, wok, or grill rip roaring hot, coat the zucchini with some oil, sear it, then finish with some salt, and you'll have a delicious side dish or snack. Of course, there are subtleties to cooking this veggie. 

Cooking zucchini well starts with high heat, and it depends on your method, which is aided by your prep. For a cast-iron pan or wok, dice up your zukes into bite-sized pieces, cover them in oil and some salt, then dump them into your hot pan or wok and get a nice sear on them before you move them around to cook the rest. For grilling, cut them vertically. You can cut zucchinis into fourths, but as chef Christina Miros told us, "Cutting them in half allows for easier maneuvering on the grill grates. The larger cuts will ensure they won't slip through the grates." By cutting them in half, you're also less likely to overcook the zucchinis, which is easier to do with thin slices. Just leave them on the grill grates directly over the main heat of the charcoal fire or hot zone in your grill for three to five minutes on each side, and pull 'em while they're still firm. You'll know they're good to flip when they're not sticking to the grates and are sweating. Kind of like a hot dog!

So now you know the one golden rule for cooking a delicious zucchini: high heat. You can modify from there, and if you're overwhelmed thanks to a hearty summer harvest and you're running out of ideas, you can even marinate zucchini to get a deeply rich flavor. Heck, you can even dice up and freeze your zucchini overstock. No matter how you want to prepare your zucchini, whether it's fresh, frozen from last summer, on the grill, or in the kitchen, just remember to turn up the heat.