Easy Air Fryer Zucchini

in Foodies Bee Hive3 days ago

Today I'm going to share my version of the air fryer zucchini with cheese recipe. Yes, now it seems I have my own recipe, which obviously is again a "fake it till you make it" recipe.

The day started with checking out what recipes are available on YouTube. I wanted to see a few versions, because I'm not a huge fan of zucchini, have tried it several times and could not become a fan, so I needed a recipe that convinces me to try it out, as well as it is not deep fried. What I hate the most is when they are going on and on about the health benefits of zucchini, or any other vegetables, then deep fry it and ruin everything that is good in them.

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So I checked eight recipes in total, till I got tired of the usual crap that comes with these recipes, like people focusing more on showing off and advertising different products and so on. At the end I had an idea how most of these recipes are put together and decided to jump in both feet and try out a new version.

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Ingredients:

  • 1 zucchini,
  • grated cheese,
  • breadcrumbs,
  • salt,
  • oil.

You can use pepper and herbs as well, but I'm not a fan of pepper and my olive oil contains basil, which is quite strong, so I didn't want to mix more flavors together.

Most of the recipes are using eggs and flour, to roll your zucchini in flour first, then in the beaten eggs, but that's exactly what I wanted to avoid. For me, the breadcrumbs and the cheese is enough, don't want to add more calories, so I chose to skip this step.

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The next step was to cut the zucchini in four and eliminate the seeds along with the soft part. I needed to do this as it's just adding extra moisture and it's not delicious either.

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Next I sliced the zucchini, lined the air fryer grid with baking paper, placed the zucchini on it, and sprinkled it with salt.

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Then sprinkled the breadcrumbs over it, after which I sprinkled it with olive oil. This step is necessary, to get a nice flavor. The last step is to cover it with cheese.

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Some recipes recommend to preheat the air fryer, but I didn't. This is what I got after 12 minutes of roasting at 200°C. The plan was to see if the zucchini is tender, as the cheese was golden brown already.

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Well, it wasn't, so I turned the whole "pie" upside down, salted it, added breadcrumbs on top, sprinkled with oil, then covered with cheese and put it back into the air fryer for 12 minutes at 200°C.

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This second roasting did the job.

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And voilà! I chose to serve it with my own homemade tomato sauce, instead of other dips, that are high on calories and unhealthy as well. It matches perfectly.

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Honestly, so far this is the best zucchini recipe I tied and I think I'm going to keep it bookmarked here on Hive. It is crunchy, even though you don't get individual zucchini sticks, the breadcrumb-cheese coat on both sides makes it crunchy.

Try it out, you won't regret it, I can assure you. Even though this again is a "fake it till you make it" recipe, it turned out pretty well.

Bon appetite!

If you're a newbie, you may want to check out these guides:


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I have mastered air friers too in the last 10 years... even more used than the microwave for me. And since I have this ninja one that does 260 C, man, it's impeccable for almost any sort of experiments.

I wish there would be a version with smaller fan sizes and more zones, because that makes the cooking more even, but I can't complain with this already amazing feature.

Also, another invention I would love one day would be inside home air fryers with a smoking feature. If I find one, I will buy it... tried multiple times to sort of hack one apparel I custom made, to try it, but there is too much convection air flowing, and all attempts resulted in either too much smoke, or completely (aka too fast) destroyed wood chip material. Also, some sort of chaminé would be nice to conduct the smoke into an exhaust.

Then you are a master indeed as in 10 years you can experience a lot. I'm quite new in this as I bought mine in February. I'm not sure how big yours is, mine is 15L capacity, which is enough for me. I don't know if there are bigger ones.

I've never heard of an inside home air fryers with a smoking feature, but sounds great and I bet it's would be lovely to have one. I need to research it to see what it does.

I'm in favor of anything that makes our life healthier, but space is a problem for me. My kitchen is spacious compared to other apartments, but still just an apartment kitchen with limited space.

What I'd want one nice day is a wood heated oven for bread, a small one, but can only have it if I buy a house, and I'm not there yet. My dad has one, that my grandmother used to make bread with, but it's huge and has not been used for decades.

Wood heating is always the way... but inside apartments or wooden-made houses, a menace.

15L is HUGE mate! That's almost like a normal oven. I don't need that big one unless you want to go for a turkey or something like that, but because I also have a normal oven, this is more for quick and fine stuff. But maybe you don't have a oven, so that would make more sense to me.

I have this one, https://ninjakitchen.co.nz/collections/grills/products/ninja-foodi-smart-xl-grill-air-fryer-ag551 (right now, and getting quite old...)

I am Portuguese, so it's everything grilled if possible. LOL Wooden grilled makes everything totally memorable. The juices dropping into the charcoals and then blasting all that smell into the product. Hummmm, there is no substitute so far for me.

Cooking bread at 220-250C is very hard indeed, not enough temperature to raise the dough fast enough (not to my standards or type of bread at least). You need tricks, like a ceramic/metal pot (which retains heat for longer periods of time and together with the humidity of the bread increases both pressure and temperature, then after 40-45 min, I usually uncover the pot, and let it cook for another 30 min to create that crunchy crust.

This last one hack is mostly for normal ovens... but if you are on a normal good +300C things (can be electric/gas but wood-based beats it always)... You can make bread like normal bakers... and my dad still has a handmade stone wood oven in Portugal, where we used to bake all sorts of food. Lots of memories...

The 15L is seems huge, but it was on sale, and the offer was too good to be true, but it was true. I paid like 100 euro for it, while the whole price was 300 euro. The next day it was 200 euro already, so I guess it was sheer luck. I have an oven, which is huge enough, but it is good to have a big air fryer too especially if it's on sale. You can grill a whole chicken and make potatoes and meat in the same time.

I am Portuguese, so it's everything grilled if possible.

That is a healthy option and way better than deep frying everything and I envy you for that :)

I gave up on baking bread for some years honestly. There's so problematic and you work a few hours on it and don't get the wanted result, so I'd rather buy bread from my favorite bakery as they have really good bread.

My dream is to cook in such an oven, wood heated I mean, cook stews and soups, oh, what a dream, but not in this life it seems 😆

Btw, today I "faked" another recipe, which is most likely coming tomorrow.

Oh, I forgot your amazing air fryer. This is really cool, I haven't seen similar in my country.

Btw, I'm based in Romania, but my mother tongue is Hungarian. I know, it's a bit complicated 😜

Just a note... this is why I love to be on Hive!

Real engagement... not that shitty AI thing.

I agree, there are users who you can have real engagement with, not AI as you say, but not just bullshit either. There are so many that are commenting, just to comment, write a lot and say nothing meaningful. Plus you can learn a lot, which is valuable.

However, since I'm on hive, I am really disappointed of people from certain countries 😬

That's exactly how you should make them, but cheese is a big no for me

Hint, do this with zucchini flowers too, they are waaaaay better

Svegliati Davide! Pensi che questa sia l'Italia? 😆

I've never seen zucchini flower here, unless in my dad's garden. I know Italy is famous for deep frying the flower rolled in a pancake dough, but have never tasted it. Maybe when I'll visit Italy, but my list of dishes to taste is so long, I'd need to stay for a whole month and would gain 10kg 🤣

Haha, they are sooooo good, you'd eat them all days... They even sell them at supermarket

I bet it's delicious as I've seen it in tv and know how to make it, but here it's not popular and I don't even know if it's sold anywhere. Would taste it for sure.

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You're welcome @erikah

Happy week!

Thank you, same to you :)

I recently got my first air fryer and I have n't been too adventurous with it just yet. So far I just cook chicken wings, steak and potatoes in it. It does all of these things so well that I am kind of looking forward to where we go from here.

I'm glad to read you're an air fryer fan too. It does a lot of things and I should get into it more, experiment and make a good and diversified menu with healthy dishes. I've quite happy so far.


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What you've done is a simple yet clever recipe for eating zucchini. Skipping the flour and eggs and still achieving that crispy texture with cheese and breadcrumbs is quite an accomplishment, in my opinion. The air fryer was a great help here. I'm not a big fan of zucchini either, but maybe this recipe will change my mind. 😊

Then we're two already as I'm not a fan either, but this dish turned out really good. Try it out as you won't regret it 😉

Wow!... You're a sea of ​​talent, @erikah friend! This looks delicious! 🤩🙏 Here at home, my wife has done something similar with eggplant in the air fryer, but I've never seen it done like this with zucchini! It looks delicious!

!discovery
!PIZZA

Oh, thank you Jesus, but you're too kind.

I love eggplants, but the only way I can eat them is grilled, then made cream with mayo. Not exactly healthy, so I have it occasionally.

This is healthier I think. There are a lot of recipes on the internet. have a look around, I bet you can find some recipes you like :)

They look pretty good. But I can't imagine what they taste like—are they like eggplants? Maybe we just call them something else here, but whatever, the important thing is they're healthy.

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Yes, a bit similar to eggplants, but unlike eggplants, that are full of seeds and soft, these have a harder part, what I used here. Look around, or ask your wife, I bet you have it there too. Zucchini is the Italian name, but the most known.

Hello 👋

ha!

Hello.

Yeah, air friers are very popular these days. I have three. 😂

Three? 😂 What the heck are you doing with three?

One at home, one in my caravan on the island, the third we get is when my son buys a Xiaomi phone and gets it as a gift 😂

Then you are not missing an air fryer wherever you go 😆

Exactly :)

I love using air fryers because it is more healthy cooking without cooking oil. Your recipe was good and It makes zucchini has a new way of cooking it yummy.

Thank you!

Yes, I agree, food in air fryer is healthier and we all should focus on eating healthy. I'm glad to know you're in the air fryer team too :)

@erikah de lo mejor que encontré navegando por Hive hoy. Me encantó el enfoque, la calidad, el laburo. Vas a estar en mi ronda semanal sin dudarlo!

@erikah de lo mejor que encontré navegando por Hive hoy. Me encantó el enfoque, la calidad, el laburo. Vas a estar en mi ronda semanal sin dudarlo!

Hi, I really like how it turned out, so I want to buy an air fryer—it'll be my next goal for my kitchen. The meals are healthier and cook very quickly. Best regards.

This looks absolutely delicious and crispy @erikah! Air fryer recipes are a lifesaver and combining zucchini with cheese is a brilliant idea for a quick tasty snack Honestly even if you call it a 'fake' recipe, the final presentation with that dipping sauce looks 100% professional and mouth-watering. Thank you for sharing your version with the Foodies Bee Hive community I am definitely saving this one to try out soon 🍽️🧀

Thank you and I'm glad you find it interesting. The truth is, if you have a bit of experience in the kitchen, you can create your own recipes, combining ingredients of all kind and this is how the world of gastronomy has been evolving for centuries :)

Completely agree with you Innovation in the kitchen is where the real magic happens and your experiment definitely paid off Keep inspiring us with more of your delicious creations 😊