One of my favorite veggies is zucchini. It's so versatile and can be incorporated into or become virtually any recipe. And -- of course -- one of my all time favorite foods ever is fried zucchini. I will eat that wherever and whenever, no matter what the circumstances. (If I die, bury me in a coffin with the Cheesecake Factory fried zucchini and ranch dressing.) But as we all know, eating even a fried vegetable all the time is just plain bad for you.
When I want the taste and quality of a delicious fried zuc, but not the calories, I turn to this go-to recipe: sautéed and "breaded" zucchini and onions. Cooking the zucchini with chunks of fresh garlic and strips of yellow onion really brings out great flavors and textures -- and who doesn't like fried onions as well? The combo of using some bread crumbs and grated parmesan cheese on a stovetop really emulates and mimics the taste of a fried breading, so I don't really miss the deep fried part either!
Without further ado, here's the recipe!
Slice a medium to large zucchini in 1/2" rounds, slice one-fourth of a yellow onion into 1/2" thick strips, and dice up as many cloves of garlic as you want (I LOVE GARLIC so I used about 6-7 cloves.. oops).
In a large skillet, heat up 2-3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil over a medium flame. If you want to add a bit of decadence, add 1/2-1 tablespoons of unsalted butter to the pan-- it's unnecessary but delicious! There are about 100 calories per tablespoon of butter, just an FYI.
Once the oil is all heated up, add the zucchini rounds to the pan, and stir them around (so they flip over and get cooked on both sides) for about 5 minutes.
Add the sliced onions to the pan and cook 'em til they're semi-see through.
Don't forget to add salt and pepper! It may seem arbitrary but it REALLY helps with the flavor of anything savory you cook!
Once the onions are transparent and the zucchini is starting to brown, go ahead and throw your garlic into the mix. And don't forget to keep stirring and keep everything moving around in the pan! You don't want one side of everything to get nice and cooked and browned but the other side raw!
Time for the fun part. Mix together about a 1/4th a cup of bread crumbs and 1/4th a cup of grated parmesan cheese. If the bread crumbs are plain (as opposed to italian-style or seasoned), mix in some dried oregano, garlic powder, onion powder, dried parsley, and any other seasonings you like.
Add half the breadcrumb mixture into the pan.
Stir it around with the veggies to completely coat each side of each veggie.
Add the other half of the breadcrumbs and do the same thing. At this point, just kind of let the whole mixture brown up and get nice and crispy. Keep stirring it all to make sure everything is getting evenly cooked and browned and crisped up!
And that's it!
This is a recipe I will cook up to be my main meal as a vegetarian. But it also makes a delicious side dish to any protein you can concoct. If course it won't be as crunchy as anything truly deep fried, but as long as you let the breading crisp up on the stove, it still has some amazing texture! Try this sort of fake-fried veggie the next time you're craving something fried!
Nutrition:
2 tablespoons of oil: 240 calories / 0g carbs
1 large zucchini: 54 calories / 10g carbs
1/4 yellow onion: 15 calories / 3.5g carbs
1 clove of garlic: 4 calories / 1g carbs
1/4 cup breadcrumbs: 107 calories / 19.5g carbs
1/4 cup parmesan cheese: 108 calories / 1g carbs
Recipe using 1 clove of garlic and no butter = 528 calories / 53g carbs
Servings per recipe = 3
Total calories per serving = 176 calories / less than 12g carbs
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