10 Zucchini Recipes To Shake Up Your Roast Veggie Routine – From Salads To Stir-Fries

Every summer, the same thing happens: you plant one zucchini seedling, turn your back for a month, and suddenly you’ve got a harvest the size of a small child. It’s the season’s most reliable overachiever, and it’s still going strong into autumn.

The challenge with zucchini has never been cooking it – it’s finding enough recipes to keep things exciting while using up the glut. We can help with that. While it’s subtle in flavour, this endlessly versatile veg holds its own across cuisines, from Italian pasta to Turkish fritters and Chinese-style stir-fries.

Here, find 10 recipes from some of Australia’s best chefs – including Neil Perry and Rosheen Kaul – to help you work through the season’s bounty.

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Stracci with zucchini (and their flowers)

Julia Busuttil Nishimura’s time spent in Italian kitchens, learning from chefs and nonnas alike, shows in this elegant stracci. Straight from her cookbook Good Cooking Every Day, this comforting, zucchini-laden dish relies on just a few high-quality ingredients. Triangular pasta sheets are folded through a velvety sauce with basil, crème fraîche and zucchini strips – creating what she calls a “pure treat”. For a weeknight shortcut, tear up lasagne sheets to create the rustic stracci (which translates to “rags” in Italian).

Stir-fried zucchini with perfect soy dressing

“I wait all year for zucchini flowers, all sweet and tender,” writes Rosheen Kaul in her debut cookbook, Secret Sauce. She loves cooking zucchini on high heat, so it chars nicely and soaks up lots of flavour. In this recipe, she stir-fries it in the same all-purpose sauce she used while head chef at Melbourne’s Etta. It’s a versatile dressing you’ll want to remember beyond this recipe – perfect for drizzling over beans or potatoes with a slick of chilli oil.

Mucver, or zucchini fritters

Ella Mittas brings the flavours of Turkey to your table with these speedy zucchini fritters, from her self-published cookbook Ela! Ela! While the original restaurant recipe is a day-long labour, this 30-minute take focuses on the essentials, like straining the zucchini properly to guarantee a “crispier and tastier” dish. It’s perfect as part of a Mediterranean-style feast, with cold tzatziki and a bright tomato salad. Or, follow Mittas’s lead and “eat them alongside every meal”.

Zucchini and sugar snap salad with macadamia pesto

This salad, from former fine-dining chef Liam Driscoll, is an excellent one to keep up your sleeve during the warmer months. Fresh, zingy and salty, it pairs beautifully with mains like chicken and lamb – and travels well if you’re heading out to a picnic or potluck. Mint, lemon, macadamias and a generous dusting of cheese are the backup singers that help the zucchini and sugar snap peas truly shine.

Grilled zucchini with warm yoghurt and saffron butter

Leave it to Yotam Ottolenghi and Noor Murad to take the humble zucchini to vibrant new heights. A highlight from their cookbook Shelf Love, this dish sees zucchini cooked with earthy, floral saffron butter and served over silky yogurt. It’s a vegetarian riff on the Levantine classic kousa b’laban (meat-stuffed zucchini with yoghurt). Pro tip: that warm yogurt sauce is highly adaptable – save the recipe to enjoy with other veggies and grilled meats, or to stir through pasta.

Zucchini risotto

“At home, you can cook one of the best risottos in the world if you do it right,” says Neil Perry. This recipe shares his tried-and-true technique for the classic style – and works in a fresh combo of zucchini, ricotta and mint. Once you’ve nailed the risotto method, you can play around with the produce. Simply swap the greens for earthy mushrooms (like shiitake or oyster) to keep enjoying it into the cooler months.

Shaved zucchini and edamame salad with pickled ginger

Most salads are easy, but this one is simpler than most, according to James Beard-winning author Alice Zaslavsky. Straight from her fourth book, Salad for Days, this dish uses pickled ginger to add a refreshing, high-voltage zing to seasonal zucchini. Enjoy it as a side salad, or toss it through soba noodles for a refreshing main. Best of all, it’s still good after a few days in the fridge.

Crisp zucchini flowers with zesty marmalade

These zucchini flowers are a signature at Matt Moran’s iconic Sydney restaurant Chiswick – where the team plucks the squash straight from the kitchen garden. This dish feels like fine dining, but is surprisingly simple to re-create at home. The crisp, tempura-battered flowers are topped with creamy goat’s curd and brightened by a zesty marmalade. It’s a sophisticated snack for your next cocktail hour or dinner party.

Prawn and zucchini spaghettini

This is no ordinary seafood pasta. It’s the dish that the pros at Melbourne restaurants Coda and Tonka lived on between services for years. Grated zucchini, fresh parsley, and plump prawns meet par-cooked spaghettini in a single pan, allowing the pasta to soak up all the flavours. Whether you’re doing date night at home or hosting an elaborate dinner party, this light-yet-luxe staple always delivers.

Zucchini, pancetta and leek tart

This summery special comes from Giorgio Linguanti, the artisan behind Melbourne’s famed That’s Amore Cheese. Centred around a crown of creamy burrata, the zucchini tart is studded with crisp pancetta and baked to golden perfection. It’s straight from Linguanti’s debut book, Burrata. The flaky, savoury base punches well above its weight, even without a blob of the iconic Apulian cheese.