Is our health worth quitting the fine crabs world and opt for a few green more? Let’s bake some zucchini fries with cheese and see!

These zucchini fries are actually baked. Not like we couldn’t fry them in oil as fried things should be but by omitting the deep fryer, we skip on tons of extra calories that the cooking oil adds to the dish. Not to mention that if we are after Keto zucchini fries which are low in carbs, we have to shun the breadcrumbs that are generally used to wrap the zucchinis.

Does a fistful of cheese make it taste better?

Using only Parmesan cheese wouldn’t do much good in the deep fryer therefore the oven is our only option if we are after keto zucchini fries. It takes a bit longer but it’s a price worth paying for our health. Sure enough, baked Parmesan covered zucchini stripes aren’t the same as breadcrumb covered deep fried ones as the bread rush is missing at each bite but flavor wise, we don’t suffer any disadvantage. Quite the opposite!

Parmesan covered baked zucchini fries are actually tastier than the breaded variety. It seems that the breadcrumbs numb our taste-buds and don’t let the true flavor of Parmesan and zucchini spread around.

What’s the bad?

Of course, bread-less fried zucchini will be only a favorite of those who like the flavor of the zucchini on the first place. Good luck convincing anybody about the health benefits or perceived flavor improvements if someone has green phobia.

The only downside of zucchini fries is in their making. As we cut them into fairly small pieces, we’ll end up with quite a large pile, even if there are only a couple of zucchinis we have at hand.

It wouldn’t be a problem as a pile of zucchini is a good thing to have, but we have to handle them one by one, and the final result will still be just one or two zucchinis. (Having Netflix in the kitchen is a blessing.)

What’s the ugly?

The good news is that we can dump the slices into the whisked-up egg and move them around until a thin film of egg is stuck on their surface. Be mindful about the number of eggs stuck on the zucchini as the excess will get off from them into the plate with the cheese and stick, the cheese together rendering our whole batch unusable.

Always let the egg drip off the zucchini before rolling them into the cheese. If we use breadcrumbs then such problems don’t generally happen as the bread’s porous surface can absorb almost anything, we throw at it.

Unfortunately, the grated cheese isn’t as forgiving with our sloppiness as bread so using as much egg as necessary to stick cheese to the zucchini is paramount if we don’t want to replace the cheesing palate after every roll.

What’s the good?

Of course, if we are in the rush and don’t care about such thing as aesthetics or we don’t have to impress anybody about our food presentation skills (aka binge watching Netflix and eating in the dark room on the sofa) then we can simply mix all the ingredients together in a big bowl and hope for the best.

Although the end results will be far from looking like zucchini fries and more likely to resemble something people leave behind after a heavy drinking session but flavor-wise it will be just like any other zucchini fries or rather zucchini sheet.

None the less, zucchini fries are a great choice to fill in the void that has been created when we decided to give some brake to our pancreas and opted for a low-carb meal. The fact it’s not just healthy but tastes good too may help us forget the fiddle, it requires thus earning a semi-permanent place at our dinner tables.

Ingredients

2 Zucchinis
2 teaspoon / 10g Salt
1 Egg
1 cup / 50g Parmesan cheese (grated)
Optional to consider to taste:
- Garlic
- Basil
- Oregano
- Thyme

How to make Zucchini fries

Halve the zucchinis then lengthwise cut them into 4 vertically and horizontally so we’ll have 8 slices.
Sprinkle salt and mix it well with the zucchini. Let it sit for about 15 minutes.
Whisk the egg and dunk the zucchini slices into the egg.
Let the zucchinis drip off excess egg before proceeding to the cheesing.
Roll the egged zucchinis into the grated cheese lightly.
Place the zucchinis onto a parchment papered baking tray. We can place them fairly close to each other as they won’t grow in size.
We can opt for the less streneous method of carelessly mixing everything together and dumping the whole thing onto the parchment layered baking tray but the results will be linear to the invested efforts.
Bake the zucchinis in a 400°F / 200°C oven until the cheese gets golden brown spots for about 30 minutes.