Crispy Parmesan Zucchini Fries

What’s crispy… salty… pairs perfectly with a burger?  FRIES!  Everyone loves fries, right?!   Let me preface… This isn’t SouthernSKINNY…  I know that.  BUT, trust me on this one.  On a recent trip to the Nashville Farmer’s Market, I found some beautiful, locally-grown zucchini.  I had planned on making burgers and fries, but saw these and my head started to spin a bit.  I’ve grilled zucchini, sauteéd zucchini and (of course) friiiiieeeed zucchini (a personal favorite, as you may expect!). What about baking it?  I thought about blending it with some carbs to make a nice zucchini bread.  But, wait.  Burgers!  Burgers, burgers!  I couldn’t possibly abandon that idea once it had been in my head.  Crispy baked parmesan zucchini fries!  That’s it!

Zucchini is 95% water by weight, so the first thing we need to do is figure out how to pull some of that moisture out so the ‘fries’ don’t end up being a mushy, hot mess.  After cutting the zucchini into ~1/4″ sticks, generously salt and let them sit.  I generally let them sit for about 20-25 minutes.  Don’t worry too much about putting a lot of salt on the zucchini. Trust me!

After the time is up, take a look at the sticks.  You will notice water droplets everywhere.  Rinse the sticks well with cool water and then dry them well.  This process is critical to getting the correct texture of the fries.  Without it, you’ll end up with mashed zucchini on a pan instead of lovely, crispy zucchini fries.

After rinsing the salted sticks in cold water (which also gets rid of almost all of the salt you added initially), move to your wet/dry stations.  I don’t mean pull out your shop-vac… Setup your egg wash on the left and your dry ingredients on the right.  Left hand wet… right hand dry.  Say it again with me.  Left hand wet… right hand dry.  Don’t mix!  EVER!  This will keep your hands from getting all gummy and gross!  Dip the sticks in the egg wash, move one-by-one to the dry and press gently.  Don’t think about being clever and tossing them all in the dry ingredients. You’ll end up with something just terrible.  Coat and move to a baking sheet.  I prefer to line the baking sheet with parchment paper instead of spraying it with non-stick.  Spray can cause too much moisture and lead to mushy fries.

Bake these beauties and prepare the dipping sauce.  They should brown nicely and have a nice, crispy texture on the outside.  Let them cool slightly before serving.  Voila!  You’ll never want regular fries again! …OK, so maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but they really are great!  A good way to get your kids (or picky adults, such as myself) to eat a few extra vegetables!