10 Easy and Delicious Zucchini Recipes

This Zucchini Frittata – an Intalian-style omelet – is simple and tasty. Make it as the centerpiece of an elegant brunch, a healthy lunch, or quick dinner. Just add a fresh salad and a bit of bread to complete the meal.

Zucchini Fritters are a quick and tempting appetizer – although I've been known to make a salad and call the whole thing dinner!

Small and medium zucchini can be simply halved lengthwise, brushed with oil, sprinkled with salt, and set on the grill. Larger specimens can be but into thick diagonal slices. Serve drizzled with balsamic vinegar or a bit of basil dressing to great effect.

These Zucchini Pickles are inspired by the ones made and served at Zuni Café in San Francisco. They are easy, refrigerator pickles, so there is no need to boil or "can" them. A bit of turmeric is responsible for the brillirant chartreuse color.

Zucchini Mint Pesto is delicious on hot pasta, as a dressing for pasta salad, or spooned over simply cooked chicken or fish. It freezes beautifully, so it's a great way to use up those piles of zucchini that start to show up in some gardens come August and September.

Shaved Zucchini Salad is quick and impressive. Bonus: it can be prepared a bit ahead of basic tossed salads with no ill effect. Mix things up a bit and make this Zucchini Mint Salad, too.

Strips of zucchini tangle up with the twists and turns of fussili (corkscrew) pasta in this easy, tasty pasta dish.

The key to this ragout is to use very tiny carrot and zucchini. Ideally, you would only need to quarter them lengthwise to get "bite-size" pieces. Larger specimens will work just fine, but the stew (oops, I mean ragout) will have a less refined air and it will involve a bit more prep work as you cut the vegetable to the right size.

This pesto soup (or soupe au pistou to be French about it) simmers the ripe vegetables of summer into a light soup flavored with a dollop of fresh made pesto.

When the garden goes crazy or you haul home just a few too many veggies from the farmers market, try this Late Summer Vegetable Stew to make quick and tasty work of your bounty. It's delicious on its own, it doesn't mind being turned into a topping for polenta either.