Shaved Zucchini Salad Recipe

Shaved Zucchini Salad Recipe brings together goat cheese, lemon, microgreens, and toasted pine nuts to create a beautiful and decadent side dish. While presenting some of the best summer vegetables, it is tangy and tasty.

This recipe for ribboned zucchini is excellent as a side dish, but it can also be eaten as a light lunch.

What makes this Ribboned Zucchini Salad Special

Fresh, crisp zucchini are beautifully celebrated in this summertime, light salad recipe. This method of shredding zucchini helps it maintain a lot of the delicate flowery flavor that is lost when it is cooked.

The mild flavor and crispness of fresh zucchini will pleasantly surprise you if you've never tried it in a meal.  

How to Choose the Best Zucchini

The late summer months, notably July, August, and September, are when zucchini is at its prime. Zoodles that are younger and smaller have better flavor.

While it may be entertaining to see gigantic zucchini, they don't taste nearly as nice and are sometimes fairly dry and seedy. Zucchini can grow to be extremely large if not plucked early.

The best zucchini will be firm to the touch and have a dark green color. When they feel light, it's because they are older and drying out; they should feel hefty for their size.

In the fridge, zucchini can often last up to a week, but if they begin to feel squishy or have any mushy areas, they are past their prime.

Ingredients for this Salad

• 3 medium zucchini
• Zest from one lemon
• Juice from one lemon
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• ½ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• ¼ cup pine nuts
• 2 ounces goat cheese
• ¼ cup microgreens

How to Make this Recipe

1. Use a mandolin (I set mine to 1/8 inch) or a vegetable peeler to thinly slice the zucchini.
2. In a large bowl, gently mix the zucchini, lemon zest, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper. So that the zucchini ribbons don't break, lightly toss to blend. For ten minutes, marinate.
3. Put the zucchini on a plate or bowl. To add some circular shapes to the salad, twist the threads.
4. Five minutes or until the pine nuts are golden brown should be spent toasting them over medium heat in a non-stick pan.
5. Goat cheese, microgreens, and toasty pine nuts should be placed on top of the zucchini.

Tips for this Making this Recipe

• For consistently thin slices of zucchini, I highly suggest using this mandoline. Also suggested are these gloves that can protect your fingertips from cuts.
• For this dish, I have a fantastic vegetable peeler from Rosle if you'd prefer to use one.
• Allowing the zucchini ribbons to marinade for a few minutes can help them roll more easily when the salad is served.
• This dish is quite adaptable; if you don't like goat cheese, you can use feta or pecorino in its place, and you can also use different kinds of nuts (walnuts or any fatty nut would be fantastic).