Squash & Gourds
1180 recipes found
Creamy Pumpkin-Leek Soup
Sesame Salmon Bowls
This one-pot meal, which is inspired by chirashi, or Japanese rice and raw fish bowls, features a savory vinegared rice that’s typically served with sushi. Traditionally, the rice is cooked first, then mixed with vinegar, but here, the rice is cooked in vinegar-seasoned water to eliminate a step. The result is sticky rice that’s tangy and sweet, and a perfect bed for fatty salmon. The salmon is added toward the end to steam directly on top of the rice for an easy one-pan meal. Packaged coleslaw is a time saver, eliminating extra knife work. Make a double batch of the zesty dressing for drizzling over roasted vegetables or green leafy salads the next day.
Caramelized Zucchini Pasta
This recipe transforms two pounds of grated fresh zucchini into one cup of caramelized zucchini that’s rich, sweet and jammy enough to become a pasta sauce. Cooked over moderately high heat in a combination of olive oil and butter, the zucchini fries in its own juices and concentrates its flavor. Adding garlic and basil lends sweetness, but consider adding anchovy, preserved lemon or red-pepper flakes. As browned bits appear in the skillet, deglaze with a few tablespoons of water, chicken stock or vegetable stock to help prevent burning and to incorporate all of those tasty caramelized bits into the sauce. With time and patience, you’ll have a not-so-pretty but delicious mixture, like caramelized onions made with zucchini. Eat it tossed with pasta, as is done here, or add it to sandwiches, pizzas or antipasti spreads. To get vegetarian recipes like this one delivered to your inbox, sign up for The Veggie newsletter.
Spicy Cucumbers With Yogurt, Lemon and Herbs
This recipe brings together two contrasting components to create a bright summer dish. A simple yogurt sauce is dressed up with herbs and zest, then topped with cucumbers that have marinated in a spicy oil. Coriander, cumin and red-pepper flakes bloom in a neutral oil, and the cucumbers take on the flavors as they sit. For the yogurt, a variety of garden fresh herbs work well, but dill and mint are crucial. Both the yogurt and the cucumbers can be prepared up to a day in advance and kept refrigerated until serving. When you’re ready, spread the yogurt sauce in a wide bowl or plate. Spoon the cucumbers on top evenly so each each bite gets a little yogurt and a little cucumber: One will temper the spiciness of the other. Save a handful of the herbs for a fresh garnish.
Cucumber Agua Fresca With Mint and Ginger
Light and refreshing with a slight bite from fresh ginger, this cooling cucumber drink is perfect on days when the warmth of the sun bakes everything in its path. A simple syrup of bruised mint and sugar adds sweetness. Agua fresca, a chilled nonalcoholic drink popular in Mexico and Central America, is most often made by blending fruit or soaked grains or by steeping plant blossoms in water. The mix is then strained, sweetened and served chilled. Enjoy this cucumber version as is, or add a splash of gin to turn it into a light aperitif or a delightful afternoon cocktail.
Stir-Fried Cucumber With Tofu
This vegan take on the cucumber and pork stir-fry offers the perfect level of acid to balance out the spice. Cooked quickly over high heat, cucumbers become juicy, with a lovely silky texture that is still crisp to the bite. Salting the cucumbers before stir-frying is essential, as it draws out moisture and allows for more of the garlicky umami flavors of the sauce to be soaked up. The tofu delivers heartiness, while the hint of Sichuan chile flakes takes this dish to another level.
Cucumber Salad With Soy, Ginger and Garlic
The trick to any sliced cucumber salad is to slice the cucumbers as thin as you can and to purge them by salting them before making the salad so the dressing doesn’t get watered down by the cucumber juice.
Classic Pasta Salad With Mozzarella, Avocado and Basil
With its colorful jumble of tomatoes, avocado, olives, mozzarella and cucumber, this has everything you’ve ever wanted in a pasta salad. But feel free to customize the ingredients to suit your own tastes (see Tip), and to add lemon and salt to the dressing to taste. As long as you don’t overcook the pasta, and add it while still hot to the dressing, you really can’t go wrong. Make this a few hours ahead so the flavors have a chance to meld, but be sure not to add the avocado until just before serving.
Mast-o Khiar (Persian Cucumber and Herb Yogurt)
Yogurt, both plain and with cucumbers, is everywhere on Iranian tables — the thicker and sourer, the better. Mast-o khiar is an everyday side similar to Indian raita or Greek tzatziki, but raisins, walnuts and rose petals elevate this version of the dish, adding a host of different flavors and textures. Dice, rather than grate, the cucumbers to keep them from getting watery, and don’t skip the dried mint and dried dill, which add dimension to the fresh herbs.
Cucumber-Ricotta Sandwiches
Part sandwich, part salad, this is an extremely refreshing and satisfying meal. It’s very simple, but there are two requirements: freshly baked bread, with a crisp crust and tender crumb, and the best ricotta you can find, preferably basket ricotta. Skip the low-fat supermarket type: Instead, make your own or use natural cream cheese or queso fresco.
Cucumber and Tonic
An evolution of soda water with bitters, think of this as a spin on the gin and tonic. Vegetal cucumber and herby mint replace the botanicals in the gin. If tonic water is too bitter for you, swap in soda water instead. And, if you're eschewing alcohol in all its forms, skip the bitters. (They do contain alcohol, though it's diluted here.)
Sesame Cucumber and Avocado Salad
Crispy cucumber and creamy avocado perform a delicate dance with earthy notes of sesame in this most simple of salads. Thin-skinned varieties such as Persian or English cucumbers work best, as they are almost seedless with a robust flesh that stays crisp. But don’t worry if you only have access to seedy cucumbers: Peel them if their skins are thick, then cut them in half lengthwise and scrape out the seeds before slicing. No-cook and ready in a matter of minutes, this elegant salad can be dressed up according to your mood. It is a satisfying meal on its own, but it can also be served alongside cold soba noodles, or with brown rice and a fried or jammy egg on top.
Cucumber Salad With Roasted Peanuts and Chile
Easy to assemble but far from basic, this cucumber salad delivers a riot of flavors and textures with snappy cucumbers, velvety peanut sauce, crunchy cilantro-peanut topping and zingy chile oil. The details make all the difference: First, salting the cucumbers mutes the fruit’s subtly bitter notes while heightening flavor. Next, the simple peanut sauce adds richness to the cool cucumbers. (Make a large batch and store it in the fridge to drizzle over vegetables, chicken and salads.) Finally, a flurry of finely chopped peanuts, cilantro and red-pepper flakes gets dusted over the salad in layers to disperse flavor.
Zucchini Parmesan
This is a simple layered casserole with three elements: roasted zucchini, a really good homemade tomato sauce and Parmesan. Roasting, rather than frying the zucchini, allows you to cut down on olive oil and time.
Cucumber-Avocado Salad
Crunchy cucumbers and creamy avocados are the stars of this simple five-ingredient salad. Peeling the cucumbers in alternating stripes helps them soak up seasonings while maintaining their shape. After being cut into bite-size pieces, they are combined with salt to draw out moisture, concentrating their flavor. Cubed avocado is tossed with lemon juice or vinegar to prevent browning, then everything is stirred together vigorously so that the avocado breaks down a bit to add a glossy coating. Finish with a hit of red-pepper flakes for heat, or embellish with herbs, lettuces, beans, soft-boiled eggs, feta, nuts and so on.
Zucchini Pancakes
Mucver (pronounced moosh-vair) are delicate, crisp zucchini pancakes popular in Turkey. This version has not just shredded zucchini, but also tiny clouds of feta and a sprinkling of minced fresh dill and scallions. They are crisp on the outside, tender within and subtly herbaceous. The trick to making the pancakes crisp and not soggy is to squeeze all the water out of the zucchini before mixing it with the other ingredients. A little brute force is required.
Pumpkin Sheet Cake With Molasses Cream-Cheese Frosting
This simple, warmly spiced pumpkin cake is enough to feed a crowd, making it a perfect holiday treat. It's also relatively versatile: You can serve it in the pan for an easy presentation, or transfer it to a platter for something a little more refined. The frosting is just enough to coat the cake in a thin layer, but, if you want more, you may want to more for a generous coating. And, for a more subtly flavored frosting, substitute an equal amount of dark maple syrup for the molasses, or skip the molasses entirely for pure cream-cheese flavor.
Chewy Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
While most pumpkin cookies skew cakey, these bars are as rich and chewy as the center of a chocolate chip cookie. To counteract the added moisture from the pumpkin purée, this recipe has a few tricks up its sleeve: For starters, it completely ditches the eggs. Browning the butter does double duty, removing water while also giving the dough a deeper flavor with nutty notes. Baking the bars at a low temperature keeps the edges soft, resulting in an impossibly chewy cookie texture with a warm pumpkin spice flavor and pockets of molten chocolate.
Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars
A simple cheesecake recipe that requires no water bath or springform pan and tastes like a creamy pumpkin pie. Baked in a 9-by-13-inch pan, these are sliced into bars that are easy to serve and eat. If you want to make them a bit fancier, you can reserve some of the plain cheesecake batter to swirl into the pumpkin batter just before baking.
Grilled Sesame Chicken and Eggplant Salad
This is a salad that is French by design and Chinese by flavor. The ginger and sesame notwithstanding, it is essentially very much like a salade composée, a “composed salad” where the ingredients are arranged and dressed but not tossed, with grilled chicken breast and a zesty vinaigrette. The jalapeño is optional, so you can turn down the heat.
Skillet Chicken and Zucchini With Charred Scallion Salsa
Baked chicken breasts have a reputation for being dry, but pan-searing bone-in, skin-on breasts before roasting them helps them render their fat. It also forms a protective coating, develops a crisp, deep-golden skin and adds an extra layer of flavor. In this one-pot recipe, zucchini is tossed with the rendered chicken fat, and everything cooks together in the oven. Swap in any seasonal, quick-roasting vegetable for the zucchini, like cherry tomatoes or asparagus, but don’t skip the charred scallion and jalapeño salsa. The zingy lime, grassy herbs and barely there brown sugar really make this dish sing. If cilantro isn’t your thing, basil makes a fine replacement, or try a combination of the two. Alongside? Steamed rice would be nice.
Soy-Glazed Chicken Breasts With Pickled Cucumbers
The pan-steam method used here ensures boneless, skinless chicken breasts cook quickly while staying moist. The technique works with water, but a flavorful mixture of soy sauce, honey, garlic and coriander infuses the chicken with even more flavor. Depending on the size of the skillet you use, the sauce may reduce a little slower or faster than the time indicated. When you swipe a rubber spatula across the bottom of the skillet, the sauce should hold a spatula-wide trail that fills in with liquid pretty quickly. If you happen to reduce too much, whisk in water one tablespoon at a time until you’re back to a shiny sauce that can be drizzled. Rice is an obvious side, but the sliced chicken and pickled cucumbers are really good tucked inside flour tortillas, too.
Roasted Honey Nut Squash and Chickpeas With Hot Honey
Colorful and meatless, sweet and fiery, this sheet-pan dinner is an exuberant combination of cold-weather vegetables and warming spices that will perk up any weeknight. Although the recipe takes about an hour from start to finish most of it is hands-off, and the actual prep time is relatively short. If you don’t have hot honey, you can substitute regular honey and a pinch of cayenne. And try to use canned chickpeas prepared with sea salt; the unsalted kind are bland.
Pan-Seared Zucchini
A zucchini and a steak may not have much in common, but, like steak, zucchini takes incredibly well to the method of quickly searing in a smoking hot pan. Zucchini has a high water content, so cooking it fast means it retains its structure and doesn’t release too much water, and doing so over high heat yields a beautiful char. A quick baste with brown butter, rosemary and garlic adds even more steakhouselike flavor. The recipe calls for 1½ tablespoons butter, but feel free to use a bit more if you like. Finally, choose smaller zucchini if you can; they tend to be less watery, more flavorful, and contain smaller seeds than their larger counterparts. If you can only find larger zucchini (or if you only have a 10-inch skillet), use two zucchini instead of three to avoid crowding the pan.