This is an Easy Way to Cook Light-tasting Zucchini
If I felt like having a light-tasting vegetable, the zucchini recipe that I tried would do nicely, but for an everyday dish, I would prefer more flavor.
Below are links to my experience with cooking zucchinis:
My Story
I had some sesame seeds in the cabinet that I wanted to use, so I went online to look for a quick and easy recipe using this ingredient.
Inspiring Recipe
During my search, I came across the Chinese-Style Zucchini recipe from the Taste of Home website. Since I regularly buy squash and bake them, this would be a great opportunity to change up the way I cook this vegetable.
The recipe that I found called for toasted sesame seeds, so I searched for instructions for that and found How to Toast Sesame Seeds from The Spruce Eats website. It included both oven and stovetop versions, which was helpful.
First Try
Let’s see how this dish comes out.
Ingredients to Use
Instead of buying only zucchini, I bought a 3.5-pound bag of green and yellow squash from Costco, so I increased the other ingredients by 3.5 times. The adjusted amounts were as follows:
- 4 tablespoons and 2 teaspoons of oil
- 7 garlic cloves
- 7 tablespoons of soy sauce
- 1 3/4 teaspoons of toasted sesame seeds
In addition, I substituted olive oil with the closest available oil that I had, olive oil/canola oil blend, and used the regular soy sauce from the cabinet instead of buying the low-sodium version.
Steps to Prepare
In terms of the process, I sliced the garlic cloves instead of mincing them, so they could be easily picked out, if anyone preferred. Also, I used a wok to cook everything, adding a few more minutes for the garlic since the batch was much larger than the original recipe called for.
As for toasting the sesame seeds, I followed the stovetop instructions as written, but used a big metal spoon to stir the seeds in a small pot, instead of using a wooden spoon or heat-proof spatula in a frying pan or wok.
Time to Eat
Here’s the plate of squash for our family dinner:
Recipe Rating
Below are the results of the recipe after the first tasting:
| Number of Ingredients | Effort (Low🤏, Medium🤏🤏, High🤏🤏🤏) | Cost per Serving (<$2💰, $2-5💰💰, >$5💰💰💰) | Taste (Not for me🤔, Trying Again🙂, Eating Regularly😋) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5️⃣ | 🤏 | 💰 | 🙂 |
Though the dish had a nice soy sauce smell, there was no sesame seed flavor.
However, my older son liked it because he didn’t have to pick out ground black peppercorns, an ingredient that I would have added if I were baking them.
Second Try
For the second round, I wanted to see if I could get some sesame seed flavor in the dish.
Ingredients to Use
There were no changes to the ingredients this time around.
Steps to Prepare
The only step I modified during the second attempt was to increase the heat from medium to medium high when toasting the sesame seeds.
Time to Eat
Here’s a plate of squash from the second try:
Recipe Rating
After making this dish another time, the results were as follows:
| Number of Ingredients | Effort (Low🤏, Medium🤏🤏, High🤏🤏🤏) | Cost per Serving (<$2💰, $2-5💰💰, >$5💰💰💰) | Taste (Not for me🤔, Trying Again🙂, Eating Regularly😋) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5️⃣ | 🤏 | 💰 | 🤔 |
Though the sesame seeds were warmer and smelled more toasted, I will continue to bake my squash with salt and black pepper for the flavor.
Although I don’t plan on using this recipe in the near future, I may pull it back up if I wanted a dish of squash with a lighter flavor. However, I would do the following to improve it to my taste:
Continuous Improvement
- Add some salt and ground peppercorns.
Thinking back on using sesame seeds for this recipe, it struck me that I didn’t know how long I had the package of sesame seeds for, though they didn’t taste bad. After some quick research, I learned the following:
Lesson for Dumber Self
- If properly stored in a dry, dark cabinet, sesame seeds should taste okay for three to four years.
What will you do now?
Next Step for You
- Share your favorite recipe using sesame seeds?
- Learn more about the shelf life of sesame seeds from an article on StillTasty’s website?
- Read another post on this site? (Go to the menu at the top of the page.)