16 Summer Squash Recipes for Easy Dinners
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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Summer Squash Pizza with Goat Cheese and Walnuts
Zucchini and yellow squash can both be mild in flavor, but nothing about this tangy, herby pizza is bland. The summer squash is sliced into slender coins, then roasted in a hot oven until it’s lightly caramelized, bringing out its sweetness.
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Grilled Squash Ribbons and Prosciutto with Mint Dressing
Grilling zucchini and summer squash ribbons on skewers is terrific because the edges become wonderfully charred and crisp, while the insides stay tender and juicy.
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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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Layered Eggplant, Zucchini and Tomato Casserole
When your garden’s too prolific, have friends over for a swap: your excess produce for theirs. But save some vegetables to make the irresistible casserole here.
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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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Squash Blossoms with Pimento Ricotta
For a new twist on a Tuscan classic, Matt Lee and Ted Lee add pimentos to the ricotta that fills these squash blossoms—an homage to pimento cheese, a Southern favorite; instead of frying them, they serve the blossoms raw.
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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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Adler & Fertig's Knife and Fork Grilled Vegetable Salad
Both residents of barbecue-mad Kansas City, Judith M. Fertig and Karen Adler are the authors of The BBQ Queens’ Big Book of Barbecue. Even when they’re grilling vegetables, as for this hearty salad drizzled with lemon vinaigrette, these BBQ Queens prefer using a gas grill with lots of power—at least 40,000 BTUs.
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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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Roasted Sea Bass with Summer Squash
“We had a boat when I was a kid, so fishing was a part of my youth,” Michael Psilakis says. Here, he mixes ladolemono (lemon juice and olive oil) with mustard and yogurt to create a tangy, creamy sauce for succulent roasted fish and vegetables.
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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