16 Summer Squash Recipes for Easy Dinners
Squash is a great addition to any summer recipe. This light, bright vegetable is versatile, nutritious, and easy to cook. These delicious recipes include Grilled Summer Squash Casserole, Crispy Summer Squash Pancakes, and Chicken and Summer Squash Fajitas. This sunny squash will make you smile every time.
Summer Squash Gratin
Food & Wine's Laura Rege puts abundant summer squash and zucchini to good use in this beautiful and very simple gratin, which gets fantastic flavor from white wine, leeks and Gruyère cheese.
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Herbed Summer Squash with Goat Cheese Cream
Both crunchy raw squash and tender grilled squash feature in this summer salad. With plenty of fresh herbs, tangy goat cheese melted into rich heavy cream, and nutty toasted seeds to balance the bright lemon juice on the squash, it's a complex-tasting but easy-to-prepare dish.
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Chicken and Summer Squash Fajitas
Summer squash is a bright addition to these quick and flavorful chicken fajitas. Any variety you have on hand—zucchini, crookneck, pattypan—would work well here.
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Spinach Fettuccine with Tangy Grilled Summer Squash
Amanda Cohen loves to toss herb fettuccine with pickled squash blossoms and grilled zucchini. This simplified recipe features squash that's pickled and then grilled, plus freshly sautéed squash.
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Grilled Summer Squash Casserole
Traditionally called malaiwala, "the one with cream," this casserole is a Punjabi twist on a ratatouille-style summer side. Chef Cheetie Kumar suggests making this a main dish by adding cubed paneer, a firm Indian cheese.
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Grilled Summer Squash with Bagna Cauda and Fried Capers
Bagna cauda, the simple Italian sauce of olive oil, anchovies and garlic, flavors strips of grilled zucchini and yellow squash. The excellent topping: crispy fried capers.
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Macaroni with Summer Squash, Salami, and Ricotta Tomato Sauce
Sun-dried tomatoes add lots of flavor to the sauce. If you prefer zucchini, you can use it in place of the summer squash.
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Crispy Summer Squash Pancakes
Recipe developer Kay Chun makes her delicate, lightly spicy latkes with grated summer squash instead of potatoes.
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Sautéed Baby Squash with Scallions
This fast and easy side combines sautéed baby squash with scallions, shallots and parsley. It's a great way to showcase the vegetable's summer-fresh flavor.
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Summer Squash Carpaccio
Take a trip to the local farmers market and grab some yellow squash. Sweet dates, fresh mint, and toasted pepitas spiced with Tajín seasoning take this thinly sliced summer squash dish to the next level.
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Roasted Vegetable Tarts
Match the earthy tastes here with an herbal Australian Cabernet Sauvignon.
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Mozzarella with Summer Squash and Olive Puree
This dish is chef Mathieu Perez's take on the classic Italian mozzarella-tomato-basil Caprese salad. It depends on young, very fresh zucchini and summer squash. To prepare the recipe like Perez does, grate the olives finely with a Microplane grater instead of pureeing them.
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Summer Squash with Poblano, Queso Fresco, and Epazote
Epazote is a leafy herb with a pungent, bright flavor, with notes of citrus, mint, and oregano. It lends a savory depth to the summer squash, and pairs particularly well with dairy. Leaving the queso fresco in larger chunks allows it to soften slightly, but not completely melt into the dish.
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Roasted Zucchini with Ricotta and Mint
While chef Sheamus Feeley likes to add pequin peppers, any chile flakes work well.
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Grilled Summer Squash with Blue Cheese and Pecans
This gorgeous summer squash salad is tossed with a bright, lemony dressing.
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Hazelnut Zucchini Salad
The key, according to South American chef Francis Mallmann, is to be generous with all of the components. "Everything you see on a plate, you have to taste it. If you have mint, you have to have a lot of it so that you can taste it," he says