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!
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.
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.
Images by Maren Caruso.
Baked Zucchini Coins
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.
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!
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.
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!
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I make these for my one year old daughter all the time! She loves them- I just add a little Parmesan to the batter
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.
You do not need to peel them! Just cut into coins and bread!
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.
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.
[…] 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 […]
[…] laid low today, but i did make some baked zucchini coins. they were a hit the first time around…but not the second […]
Of course you can share them! Thanks!
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!
This are awesome…thanks!!
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
[…] Zucchini Coins (Adapted from Weelicious) […]