Do you know of a zucchini naysayer? Well make them these crunchy, light, delicious Baked Zucchini Coins and watch them change their tune in an instant!

Baked Zucchini Coins from WeeliciousPin

We recently did a poll on the weelicious Facebook page asking parents what their kid’s favorite green vegetables is. While broccoli and peas ranked high on the list, zucchini was barely even mentioned. Maybe that’s because people aren’t familiar with how to prepare it. A lot of people tend to steam zucchini, which I find makes it a bit limp and so I can understand why kids don’t take to a vegetable with that kind of texture. Since I’m always playing around with fun ways to prepare vegetables that kids are actually excited to eat, I decided to revisit zucchini this week.

Baked Zucchini Coins from WeeliciousPin

Coincidentally, we’ve got zucchini growing in our garden right now and it’s all over our farmer’s market too. Zucchini has a very delicate flavor, so I focused on a simple preparation. These baked zucchini coins are baked, which makes them crunchy on the outside and soft and tender inside — a real textural treat for kids (and Kenya gets a kick out of eating “coins” because he feels like he’s got edible pocket change on his plate). Add a little tomato sauce on the side and they’re the perfect side dish for your family to enjoy with any meal.

Baked Zucchini Coins from WeeliciousPin

Images by Maren Caruso.

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Baked Zucchini Coins

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Author: Catherine McCord
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Total Time 30 minutes

Ingredients  

  • 1/2 Cup whole wheat panko or bread crumbs
  • 1/4 Cup parmesan cheese, grated
  • 1/2 Tsp kosher salt
  • 1/2 Tsp garlic powder
  • 1 large egg
  • 1/4 Cup flour
  • 2 Medium Zucchini, cut into 1/4 inch coins
  • canola or olive oil spray

Instructions 

  • Preheat oven to 450 degrees and coat a large baking sheet with cooking spray.
  • Mix the first 4 ingredients in a bowl.
  • Whisk the egg in a separate bowl.
  • Place the flour in another bowl.
  • Make an assembly line with the bowls, and first dip the zucchini coins into the
  • flour, then the egg and finally into the bread crumb mixture, coating evenly and repeating with all the zucchini coins.
  • Place all of the coins on the baking sheet/rack. Arrange so they’re not touching, spray with oil and bake for 20 minutes or until the
  • bread crumbs are golden.
  • Serve.
  • *After step 5 place on a baking sheet and freeze for 30 minutes. Remove and place in a ziploc bag, label, and freeze. When ready to eat – take them out of the freezer and put them in the oven adding at least another 3-5 minutes baking time.

Nutrition

Calories: 130kcal | Carbohydrates: 19g | Protein: 7g | Fat: 3g | Cholesterol: 5mg | Sodium: 510mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 3g
Did you make this recipe?Mention @Weelicious or tag #weelicious!

About the Author

Catherine is a mama of three. A Kentucky girl living in California. Here’s what I know: all kids can be great eaters and mealtime must be easy. I create simple, healthy recipes the whole family will love.

Comments

  1. Yummy! I would love to make these! Catherine, would I be able to pack these for a school lunch if I make them the night before? Thanks!

  2. […] supper – baked macaroni and cheese, zucchini coins […]

  3. […] Baked Zucchini Coins | Weelicious.com | Weelicious.com – Make these Baked Zucchini Coins to get more nutritious veggies into your kids’ diets!… […]

  4. […] keeping with the “gelt” theme, I also made these Baked Zucchini Coins with Tomato Sauce. These were a little more time-consuming to make, because of the triple dipping […]

  5. Yes! Just below the recipe there is a button that says Print! Next to the Recipe Box and Ziplist buttons! 🙂

  6. I love zucchini but I can only get my 2yo to eat it when I add some to pasta. Maybe it’s because I usually steam it – thanks for the tip! I’ll have to try these soon!

  7. Just made these last night with Weelicious Turkey Burgers! Delicious way to use garden zucchini in summer! I did find the prep time to be more like 20 min instead of 10.

  8. I made these a couple of days ago, I wish I would’ve read the tips on how to make them faster, took me a while but totally worth it. They were delicious!

  9. […] night was a busy night, I made Zucchini Coins, Carrot Sticks and a Spicy Kale Pesto with Zucchini […]

  10. I make these for my one year old daughter all the time! She loves them- I just add a little Parmesan to the batter

  11. made these tonight to serve with ravioli – LOVE them! my girls still won’t touch them, but i probably ate most of them myself! 🙂 made another batch for the freezer.

  12. Do you peel the zucchini first or just wash and cut into coins? As you can tell I’ve never cooked with zucchini before, but I want my daughter to eat a variety of healthy foods. Hopefully, I’ll like them too.

  13. These are positively delicious. I had some leftover breadcrumb mixture after making my zucchini, so I made some tofu nuggets. They were also delish – my husband, who claims he doesn’t even like tofu, ate half of them as they were cooling. Have you tried this for any other veggie? I was thinking breaded cauliflower would be tasty too.

  14. […] then Panko breadcrumbs and grated parmesan mixture, and baked in the oven for about 20 minutes (original recipe here). We made some pesto hummus, which the little one refused in the beginning, but finished it all […]

  15. […] laid low today, but i did make some baked zucchini coins. they were a hit the first time around…but not the second […]

  16. Catherine these look so yummy! I saw these in Parents magazine, would I be able to share this recipe on my blog, http://www.highlandsranchmom.com? I love how easy and healthy these are for a snack! I’ve been looking for fun veggie recipes. I will definitely be getting weelicious :). Thanks so much for sharing!

  17. Tryed these today, and in emabarrassed to say that thay tasted so good, i ended up eating most of them……..ok so i ate them all lol. My 12 month old took a bite or two lol. He had already had his dinner so i figured i would eat the rest. Thankfully i freezed a whole batch of them. Great little recipe idea. Thanks

  18. […] Zucchini Coins (Adapted from Weelicious) […]

  19. Halfway thru prep I realized I had no eggs. Or milk. So I used balsamic dressing instead. Came out wonderful. My 3 year old anti green veggie daughter is devouring them as I type. Yay!! 🙂

  20. […] then Panko breadcrumbs and grated parmesan mixture, and baked in the oven for about 20 minutes (original recipe here). We made some pesto hummus, which the little one refused in the beginning, but finished it all […]

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    […]Baked Zucchini Coins | Weelicious â„¢ – Fast, Easy & Fresh Homemade Home Made Baby Food Babyfood Recipes, Toddler Food and recipes for the entire family![…]…

  22. Just made this and they are so yummy, I can’t stop eating them, don’t know if there will be any left for dinner lol

  23. I made these last night as part of our dinner and our two year old loved them! He almost pulled the bowl off the kitchen bench top trying to get to another piece! Summer’s on the way here in Australia and I can’t wait to try the same mix with squash and aubergines. Bravo Catherine!

  24. Does it matter if I freeze these before or after I bake them? The instructions call for freezing before baking, but does after baking work as well. These are very tasty, by the way. Thank you for this great recipe. I will try them on my 2-yr-old for dinner tonight. Thanks again. I really love this site!

  25. These were awesome!! My 3-year-old (who can be picky from time to time) asked for seconds with these!! Thanks for another great idea!

  26. Made these tonight and they were very good! A tad bit salty for my taste but that’s an easy fix for next time. My two year old ate some, though he would take one bite and then put it down, take another for one bite and put it down. Not sure why but next time I will make them smaller to see if a bite-size shape works better for him. Overall I was impressed and glad to have a fun way to prepare zucchini; this was my first time cooking anything with it!

  27. I put the bread crumb mix in one tupperware container and the flour in another. My 17 month old daughter loved helping make dinner by shaking the zucchini coins for me. She ate a couple of them (which is amazing since all she seems to ever want is ketchup) and her 12 year old sister ate the rest of the entire batch!

  28. Yeah thats a very good idea!!! but i think its impossible for the tiernar to not download but mike will probably think of something really AWESOME AND EPIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  29. I realize these comments are old, but for the sake of folks like me who are just finding this I wanted to clarify. Freezing uncooked zucchini causes all of the water in the vegetable to expand as it freezes which breaks down the cell walls, resulting in mushy veggie when thawed. If you want to try freezing these, I’d suggest baking, at least till almost done, then reheating in the oven (or possibly a blend of microwave and oven – nuke a bit to take off the chill then crisp in the oven or toaster oven). Can’t say for sure if it’ll work great, but it’d be the best chance for success… I learned the hard way not to freeze raw zucchini unless your intended use once thawed is in sauce. Wet, rubbery mush. 🙂

  30. I made these and froze them after they were coated. And tonight after trying to heat them up again (this is time number 2) They turned out SUPER soggy. What am I doing wrong? I really want my 19 month old to get off of pureed and these are just to soggy for him and he wont eat them any other way.

  31. […] he got once mama recovered from her heart attack and picked herself up off the floor). I made the Baked Zucchini Coins, which were delicious, although (grrrrr!) the toddler didn’t think so (luckily his dadda […]

  32. Hi, I tried this recipe and it turned out very delicious ! I never thought zucchini could be that delicious. DELICIOUS !
    I also tried it with eggplant. The sweetness really comes out !

    Can I post this on my Bahasa Indonesia blog ?
    Moms here should know about this recipe, to ‘trick’ the kids to eat vegetables. Thank you !

  33. Should have taken a look at these comments before I tried to make these last night as they seemed to be more labor intensive that I imagined. I will try again by putting the flour in a bag and will also use 2 eggs as I used up the 1 egg before I was half done. Forgot about using the rack but will do so next time, as well. Surprisingly, for the few that I did manage to do, they tasted great. Looked a hot mess, but quite tasty!

  34. When I do the flour, I put it in a ziploc bag, put all the zucchini coins, and than shake it all. All your zucchini gets floured evenly and fast, without getting your fingers dirty.

  35. My 1year old little girl loves zucchini no matter how I make it but I made these just to do something different and she loved them! and so did my husband. Thanks!

  36. I made these tonight. 3 year old thought the circles were appealing enough to at least try one (I consider this a win). Daddy and I ate a ton.
    Baked at 450 in a convection oven for 8 minutes in case that helps anyone who wants to make it even quicker.

  37. Usually make fried zucchini, but really WAY too oily. Made a batch of the baked coins yesterday & my semi-finicky son asked for them again today! Omitted the parmesan & they still turned out delicious.

    My oven cooks faster, so they were a little burned at 15 minutes yesterday; going to try 10 minutes today.

    Thanks for the great recipe! They are delicious. Makes me feel a little bit like a “bad mommy” cuz I eat so many of them. 😀

  38. made these in stick version (my son loves things in sticks) and then at the very end of cooking put the oven on broil for like 1 minute or 2 and it made them super crunchy!!! loved them.

  39. Sounds interesting! I haven’t tried it but I think the cooking time would be totally different. If you give them a try let me know how they turn out!

  40. I’m so sad it didn’t work out, i hope you try them again. When you dip them in flour, try to pat or shake away the excess flour then put them in the egg. Once you put them in egg, let them sit on each side for about 10-20 seconds so the flour can absorb the egg (i did this in big batches and just threw them in the egg to sit then went on to the next step). Usually when the egg repels from the flour its because you have too much flour. I used grated parmesan, the kind that you can sprinkle over your pasta and its looks like bread crumbs – not the shredded kind. I hope this helps a lot, Let me know how they come out! 🙂

  41. i finally found time to make these today and it just didn’t work. not sure what went wrong, but here’s what happened: i dipped the slices into the flour, but then when dipping into the egg, the flour coating seemed to repel the egg from sticking onto the slice (i used whole wheat pastry flour b/c that’s what i had). also, i guess you need to grate your cheese extremely fine, since mine wouldn’t stick with the bread crumbs onto the slice at the end. so it was a big disaster! any thoughts on why this didn’t work?

  42. Darn! After shopping for and making these, my 3 year old said that she did not like the “middle part.” (The ZUCCHINI!!) I liked them, though!

  43. Made these today and all three kids gobbled them up (even by 9 month old!). I changed the name to “Pirate’s Gold” to appeal to my five year old son. It was a winner! The garlic powder and parm cheese really gave the breading a nice flavor. They came out super crispy. What a delightful lunch!

  44. YUM! I have a near-impossible time getting my toddler to eat any vegetable, but if it’s sort of breaded, she’s usually game to at least try it! I would love this.

  45. Made these tonight – these are the first non-pureed vegetable my 21 month old ate more than one bite of. What a godsend! Thank you!

    Note: I made mine with Ener-G Egg Replacer (http://www.ener-g.com/store/detail.aspx?section=8&cat=8&id=97) instead of the egg and it worked out great. I did have to make two “eggs” worth following the package directions to have enough. This product is egg (and dairy) free for those looking for a substitute.

  46. have you tried zucchini fritters with greek yogurt dipping sauce…my little guys loves ’em!

  47. These were delicious! It had the crunchiness of fried food that kids like. I used dried basil instead of parmesan cheese since we have a milk allergy. Yum.

  48. I’m definitely bookmarking this recipe to try! I like zucchini, but my husband hates the texture and my son doesn’t eat much of anything. I’ve got a great cheesy zucchini recipe on my blog if you need more zucchini inspiration. Hoping to try these zucchini coins in the next few days!

  49. I made these for my 5 year old & 1 year old for lunch today. These two are snarfing these down faster than I can get them on their plates! A Clear winner in this household!

  50. Can you use frozen zucchini? I have 6 frozen bags of organic zucchini and squash slices that I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with.

  51. I can’t wait to try this!! My husband makes a delicious (fried) version which we rarely eat because of all the grease, so I am exciting to blow him away with a healthy version. Thanks for sharing! Also trying pulled pork soon! Keep the great ideas coming!

  52. You can make them without the cheese or substitute it with italian herbs or even buy italian herb bread crumbs and bread them with those. You don’t have to put the cheese. Hope he likes them!!

  53. My son is not a parmesan cheese fan. Can I make this without the parm cheese or substitute something else?

  54. Great! My 3 year old loved zucchini and now he doesn’t want it. This is a great way to bring it back!

  55. Catherine! This looks great! I’ve done similar to eggplant, but never thought about breading zuccini! I will probably also try this with summer squash. Thank you for another great recipe!

  56. My daughter won’t eat veg either and I am putting them into all sorts of things. We should e-mail eachother to share ideas!

  57. I like these myself. Unfortunately my fourteen-month-old has gone off veggies all together. Frustration, sigh! I hide them in muffins, bread, and pancakes and he eats them. I guess I’ll keep trying and cross my fingers. Thanks for all the good ideas.

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