Last week, we talked tomatoes; this week is all about our zeal for zucchini, with recipes devoted to summer’s low-key charmer. While I love zucchini, I do not love mushy, watery zucchini, and so it’s essential to lean on recipes and techniques that best show it off.
As usual here at Five Weeknight Dishes, we’re focused on dinner recipes, but don’t ignore zucchini’s other divine purpose: as an ingredient for baking. Zucchini bread, zucchini muffins and chocolate zucchini loaf cake are all worthy of your time. Tell me what you’re thinking and making at dearemily@nytimes.com. Next week: corn!
2. Sheet-Pan Chicken With Zucchini and Basil
Zucchini hardly ever stars in sheet-pan dinners — but why not? It’s delicious when it’s left alone to caramelize on the pan (don’t poke at it), which is what it does here alongside bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs in this Melissa Clark recipe. Use two sheet pans if you need to feed more than two or three people, instead of crowding one pan.
3. Zucchini Scampi
The scampi universe expands with this recipe from Ali Slagle, which takes the utterly delicious garlicky butter sauce of shrimp scampi and applies it to zucchini rounds. I’d double the sauce and serve this with pasta, and it would be an impeccable side dish for salmon.
