Roasted Zucchini with Garlic Parmesan

Want to learn how to roast zucchini spears in the oven? This simple Roasted Zucchini with Garlic Parmesan recipe is the only zucchini side dish recipe you will need!

Generously coated with garlic and parmesan, these roasted zucchini spears are baked until they are crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside, and are full of incredible flavors.

Oven Roasted Zucchini Spears

If you don’t love zucchini, don’t give up on it just yet…give this Roasted Zucchini Spears a try! You might just change your mind.

Zucchini itself has a mild flavor, and because of that they are sometimes considered fairly bland. That is why we are bringing amazing flavor and textures to this Oven Roasted Zucchini – loading it with lots of fresh garlic and parmesan, and baking it until the outsides are crispy.

By adding two simple ingredients and oven-roasting these zucchinis, it is such a game-changer.

Zucchini is a super healthy and delicious vegetable, full of Vitamin B6, Folate, Potassium, Vitamin A, has lots of antioxidants, and is low in fat and sugar. There are so many benefits to eating them.

They are typically in season during the late summer and are very budget-friendly as well.

So we are on a mission here. Let’s make this Roasted Zucchini Spears super tasty so that you’d want to eat them and actually enjoy eating them.

Looking for more zucchini recipes? Also check out my Grilled Chicken Zoodles, where zucchini noodles are used in placed of regular noodles as a low carb substitute.

Ingredients

We are keeping this roasted zucchini spears recipe fairly simple here. We are using a few basic, pantry-friendly ingredients:

• Zucchini – use 3-4 zucchinis for this recipe 3 if they are very large and 4 if they are smaller. Slice them into spears – see below for step-by-step instructions.
• Fresh garlic – mince garlic finely – avoid substituting with garlic powder.
• Parmesan cheese – grated. You can buy ready grated cheese, or grate a block of parmesan cheese by cutting it into smaller pieces and pulsing it in the food processor (best and quickest way to grate parmesan!). I find that shredded parmesan cheese works less well because it’s harder for it to stick to the zucchini spears.
• Olive oil – or another cooking oil – vegetable oil, canola oil, avocado oil etc.
• Salt and black pepper

How to bake zucchini spears

Oven Roasted Zucchini Spears is my favorite way to cook a zucchini side dish because it allows me to thorough season the zucchini and cook it quickly under high heat in the oven in order to crisp the outside without over cooking the insides.

And because it is sliced into spears, there’s a lot of surface to generously coat zucchini in the most flavorful and tasty seasonings. More seasonings = tastier zucchini!

Step 1: Prepare zucchini

Before seasoning and roasting the zucchinis, let’s first prepare the zucchini itself.

Scrub and wash whole zucchini under running water and then slice it into quarters.

There’s no need to remove the skin. Slice off the top and bottom, then slice it into half lengthwise, and then slice the half into quarters lengthwise.

You should get four spears from each zucchini.

If you have a large zucchini, you can slice each of the spears into half if you prefer them shorter, but it is not necessary.

Once all the zucchinis are sliced, place zucchini spears on a paper towel and then use another piece of paper towel to dab on the top of zucchini spears to remove moisture.

Zucchinis tend to have a lot of moisture in them, so we want to remove access moisture as much as we can so that they are not wet and soggy. This will also help crisp up the zucchini.

This is an important step when making Roasted Zucchini!

Step 2: Season zucchini

A solid seasoning and make or break your Oven Roasted Zucchini dish!

Bring zucchini spears into a large rectangular dish so that they can lay flat on the dish.

In a small bowl, combine olive oil, minced garlic, salt and black pepper.

Pour mixture onto zucchinis and use your hands to give it a toss.

Add grated parmesan on there, and toss again to combine.

Step 4: Bake!

To make sure Zucchini is crispy and not soggy when bake, we are going to top the baking sheet with a baking rack. Place a parchment paper or aluminum foil in between them to catch the drippings and make cleanup easier.

Spray baking rack with cooking oil spray, then place zucchini spears on the baking rack.

Zucchini spears can be placed right next to each other but avoid overlapping them.

Be sure to scoop up all the parmesan and garlic pieces and place them on top of the zucchini spears. They bring flavor to your zucchinis and will become the crunchy golden brown top we all know and love in roasted zucchini so don’t let them go to waste!

Bake in the oven at 425℉ for 20-25 minutes, or until the tops are golden brown and bubbly.

And that is it – Garlic Parmesan Roasted Zucchini Spears that is crispy on the outside and soft and juicy on the inside, full of fantastic flavors.

Whenever I serve roasted zucchini spears, everyone loves it! Including those who are wary about zucchinis.

So if you are on the fence about zucchini, give these oven baked zucchini spears with garlic parmesan goodness a try.

If you need only one zucchini recipe in your life, THIS IS IT!!!

This is almost always the way I make my zucchinis when I want to make it as a side dish. It’s quick, healthy-ish (let’s conveniently ignore the amount of parmesan I added to it), delicious, and it’s just hard to go wrong with it!

Tips and Tricks

A few things to note when making Oven Baked Zucchini, so that you can make a bomb oven roasted zucchini spears:

• Pat dry zucchini before seasoning them! Zucchini produces a lot of moisture and we want to remove as much access moisture as possible.
• Bake zucchini spears on baking sheet topped with baking rack, with parchment paper in between to catch the drippings. This will prevent zucchini from becoming soggy and gives it a nice crispy texture.
• Make sure to spray baking rack with cooking spray if not Roasted Zucchini will get stuck on the rack.

Substitution and Variation

My goal here is to show you how to roast zucchini in the simplest, most basic way possible (that is still crazy delicious, of course). You can definitely jazz it up, make it fancier, and put your on twist to it! In fact, I encourage it!

Here are other items you can add to this baked zucchini spears recipe if you’d like, and I would love to hear more ideas if you have them!

• Add herbs to the seasoning mix, such as thyme, dill, Italian seasoning, oregano etc.
• For my cheese lovers out there…top it off with more cheese after baking! You can add more parmesan, or even top it with mozzarella and send it back into the oven for a minute so that it melts.
• Garnish with fresh herbs such as parsley at the end.
• Dip zucchini in ranch or your favorite creamy dipping sauce.
• When finish baking, remove zucchini from baking rack promptly so they do not stick to it.

Frequently Asked Questions

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• Easy Garlic Parmesan Asparagus
• Garlic Honey Roasted Carrots
• Broccoli au Gratin
• Garlic Sautéed Spinach
• Honey Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Bacon
• Asian Style Green Beans
• Caramelized Onions Sautéed Green Beans
• Oven Roasted Corn on the Cob with Parmesan Herb Butter
• Crispy Baked Potato Skins