Zucchini is one of the first summer vegetables.
It is appreciated for having a high content of various trace elements.
These are potassium, calcium, magnesium, sodium, iron. Plus vitamins.
In addition, zucchini due to its low calorie content is great for diet food.
This vegetable has practically no distinct taste of its own, which is why many consider it not a particularly interesting product.
In fact, this is its dignity: zucchini is perfectly combined with absolutely any products in the composition of different dishes. This also applies to zucchini cutlets. There are many recipes for them that allows you to cook a variety of tasty and healthy dishes based on this vegetable.
Basic principles of cooking zucchini cutlets
There are a number of basic rules by which squash cutlets can be cooked successfully. They are based on the features of this vegetable and the possibilities of its combination with other products.
1. Zucchini for meatballs chopped raw with a coarse or fine grater, meat grinder, blender.
2. Prepared mass should be salted and left in a colander, so that the glass has excess liquid - zucchini is a very juicy vegetable.
3. You can chop the zucchini with a knife into small cubes - you will get chopped cutlets with a well-defined structure.
4. Squash cutlets can be prepared on the basis of only this one product or in combination with other additives. They can be:
• various vegetables - potatoes, onions, carrots, cabbage and others
• meat in the form of minced or chopped cubes
• minced fish
• cottage cheese
• cereals - rice, rolled oats, buckwheat.
5. Eggs and flour or semolina are added to zucchini cutlets to hold together and give shape.
6. Black pepper, pounded coriander, fresh or dried dill, parsley, basil and other herbs to taste are added to them as flavoring seasonings.
7. Zucchini meatballs fried in butter, baked in the oven, cooked in a pair or in a microwave oven, as well as in a slow cooker. 8. Zucchini cutlets can be served for breakfast, as well as for lunch or dinner as a side dish or as an independent dish or snack. They are usually good and cold.
9. Such dishes can be prepared for future use: fried patties are well stored in the freezer and do not lose their taste and quality when heated.
Zucchini Cutlets: The Simplest Recipe
Those who want to try the zucchini meatballs, it is better to start with the simplest recipe. Here you can understand the taste and texture of the main product and determine whether to further experiment. Usually one solution is worth it! In fact, zucchini cutlets are not only tasty, but also very simple, affordable, and economical.
Ingredients
1 medium young zucchini - about 300 g in weight
2 eggs
2 tablespoons flour
Salt
Black pepper
Dill greens
Vegetable oil.
Method of preparation
Grind zucchini in any way. If you get an old copy, first peel off the skin and remove the seeds.
Salt and drain.
Add eggs, flour, salt, pepper and finely chopped dill. Stir until smooth. Must be pretty thick mass.
Spread it with a spoon in the pan with hot oil and fry as pancakes until browning.
Serve best with sour cream, which added greens and garlic.
Zucchini cutlets in the oven
Zucchini cutlets can be not only fried in butter, but also baked in the oven. This will be a more dietary recipe. Yes, and time and effort will be less, because you do not need to stand at the stove while the burgers are roasting. You can make them from zucchini with egg and flour, and you can add other ingredients. Cutlets will be more saturated and tasty.
Ingredients
Medium squash weighing 300-500 g
200 g white cabbage
1 onion
1 bell pepper, better red
2 eggs
200 g white bread without a crust
100 g of cheese - more can be desired
Salt
Black pepper
Any greens.
Method of preparation
Cabbage and zucchini mince. To drain the juice, squeeze well.
Finely chop the onion and pepper into cubes. Soak bread for 10 minutes in water or milk, squeeze, knead.
Cheese grate on a fine grater.
Mix all the ingredients. It should turn out rather dense mass, not liquid. If a lot of moisture, you can correct the situation with the help of semolina.
Form oblong cutlets with wet hands. Put on a greased baking sheet and send to the oven.
Cook over medium heat for 20-30 minutes.
You can decompose the mass in molds or one layer on a baking sheet and bake. If on a baking sheet, after cooling down, cut into squares.
Such burgers are good and cold.
Zucchini plus oatmeal: double use of cutlets
Who does not know about the benefits of oatmeal! It remarkably helps digestion, saturates thanks to fiber, but does not add excess weight due to its low calorie content. In combination with zucchini oatmeal only wins, the burgers from these two products are juicy, tender, nourishing and very, very useful.
Ingredients
500 g zucchini, if not young, then without skin and seeds
Half a cup cereal rolled oats
2 eggs
Dill or parsley
Salt.
Method of preparation
Grate zucchini on a medium grater. Juice does not drain.
It is desirable to grind Hercules in a meat grinder or blender, otherwise the flakes will be felt. However, many people like this unshredded version.
Mix with oat-flakes, salt, let stand for 20 minutes to swell the cereal.
Rate the consistency, the mass should not be liquid. If necessary, add more Hercules.
Put the finely chopped greens and eggs. Stir very well.
Cutlets can be formed by dipping in the same oatmeal or flour, and fry in a frying pan with hot oil. You can spread a lot of spoon in the pan on the type of pancakes.
Delicious hearty cutlets go best with sour cream.
Chicken Zucchini Cutlets
Useful doubly dish - squash cutlets with the addition of chicken meat. This recipe also features original stuffing. The ingredients are not completely crushed, which adds extra juiciness and a pleasant crunchy cutlets.
Ingredients
300 g young fresh zucchini 300 g chicken fillet - preferably breasts
Big onion
2 eggs
Garlic clove
Salt
1-2 tablespoons of flour
A handful of chopped greens - onion feathers, dill, parsley, cilantro to taste
Vegetable oil.
Method of preparation
Chicken fillet is better to take slightly frostbitten. Cut it into layers, then into cubes, and then turn them into small cubes.
Cut zucchini in the same size.
Bulb also cut into small cubes.
Mix meat and vegetables. Add crushed garlic, eggs, herbs. Salt Give a little stand.
Must stand out juice. Add flour to make the liquid disappear. It is not advisable to add a lot of flour. If the juice is abundant, it is better to drain it.
Spoon a portion of minced meat into a pan with hot oil. Fry until ruddy on both sides.
Beautiful and tasty cutlets from minced chicken-zucchini mince can be served with fresh vegetables, another side dish, completely without anything, or made into a tasty sandwich, laid on the bread.
Zucchini and turkey: a wonderful combination in the form of cutlets
Turkey meat is considered particularly beneficial. It is similar to chicken in consistency and composition, also does not contain excess fat and is very rich in protein. However, turkey does not cause allergies, which makes it suitable for feeding sick people and toddlers. In combination with zucchini make wonderful burgers.
Ingredients
300 g turkey fillet
300 g zucchini
1 egg
2 tablespoons of semolina
1 onion
1 carrot
Salt
Ground black pepper
Vegetable oil.
Method of preparation
Meat mince with zucchini. You can separately grate the zucchini, grind the meat in a blender - the main thing is to grind both components.
Finely chop the onion, grate the carrot, finely, too.
Extinguish the onions on a spoonful of vegetable oil when it starts to turn red - put the carrots, hold for another five minutes, stirring.
Cool roasted vegetables and mix with meat and zucchini mass. Salt, pepper. If too much liquid, pour a spoon of semolina and let stand. Ten minutes to form an oval cutlet. Roll in semolina from all sides.
Fry in a pan or bake in a baking tray in the oven.
If the option of frying is chosen, then at the end of cooking add the fried patties to the pan and cover with a lid. Hold on low heat for five minutes so that the inside is not exactly raw.
Serve as regular meat patties.
Unusual and very juicy: squash cutlets with minced fish
Fish and zucchini? Is it possible to combine this? It turns out you can. And the thing is that products from minced fish are often dryish, especially if they are low-fat varieties of fish. Then milled lard is added to the mince. However, if this is not desirable, you can make the fish cakes juicy and in another way. Namely - add juicy vegetables. These are the zucchini. Due to its neutral taste and smell, it can be successfully combined with fish.
Ingredients
500 g of fish fillets - pollock, pink salmon, pike, cod, navaga, hake
300 g zucchini, if not young, free from seeds and peel
1-2 onions
2 eggs
2 tablespoons of semolina
Salt
Pepper ground fragrant or just black
Breadcrumbs
Vegetable oil.
Method of preparation
Cut the fish fillets into pieces, also do with the zucchini and onions.
Grind everything in a meat grinder or blender.
In the stuffing add semolina, salt, sprinkle with pepper, drive eggs. Mix well and let stand for 15 minutes. Excess moisture must be absorbed due to the semolina that will swell.
Make round patties or oblong-type fish sticks. Well breaded in bread crumbs.
Fry in hot oil from both sides. Turning over to the second side, cover the pan with a lid and hold for five minutes so that the cutlets steamed inside. Then remove the lid and heat until crisp.
Serve warm, but good fishcakes and cold.
Kabachkovo-meat dish - “meatballs on a plate”
The same variations of zucchini and meat, but in a very original design. It is eaten even by those who say that they do not like squash at all.
Ingredients 500 g of minced meat - any
2 young long zucchini, zucchini can
Half a cup of rice
2 cloves of garlic
Ground black pepper to taste
100-150 g of hard cheese.
Method of preparation
Boil rice in plenty of water, drain, rinse, cool.
In the ready stuffing add rice, pepper.
Grate cheese, mix with chopped garlic.
Zucchini cut into slices 1-1.5 cm thick.
Put zucchini on a greased baking sheet at a small distance from each other, but not close.
On top of each zucchini put a ball of meat and rice stuffing. Slightly pin down.
For each future cutlet put on a small hill cheese garlic mixture.
Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes.
Secrets and intricacies of cooking squash cutlets
- Zucchini cutlets can be cooked completely flat, like fritters, then they are well roasted.
- But if you make thicker cutlets, especially with the use of meat ingredients, after frying, you need to hold them under the lid on the stove or put them in the oven to reach readiness.
- It is not advisable to add too much flour or semolina to squash cutlets, so that the consistency of dough products is not obtained.
- Eggs hold zucchini minced. However, if meatballs and ground beef patties are cooked, you can do without eggs. Only you need to knead the mass well and beat off the pieces on the palms when forming. Then the cutlets will be strong and will not fall apart.
- The best sauce for squash cutlets is sour cream with additives - greens, garlic, pepper. If desired, you can use mayonnaise and other sauces.
Bon appetit!
