For lots of people, dinner is simply incomplete without serving a delicious array of scrumptious vegetable sides. But here’s an idea: why not take a break from the usual leafy green salads, and dig into a plateful of succulent zucchini instead?

Zucchini is one of my favorite vegetables. The taste of cooked zucchini is pleasantly bland. It’s texture is soft but not mushy, if cooked right, it’s peel is crunchy and the inside is spongy and its taste is a bit of a squash, with some floral notes and some sweetness to it, but nothing overpowering!

I love it because it’s a highly versatile vegetable that can suit many recipes!

You won’t run out of uses for zucchini. Mix it into soups, salads, or frittatas, serve it as a side dish with your meat dishes, or make “zucchini fries,” served with an onion dip as an appetizer. Want a healthy, no-grain and no-wheat pasta? Make zucchini “noodles” using a vegetable peeler – it will be as al dente as regular spaghetti. Mix 1/2 teaspoon of olive oil, minced garlic and any grated cheese (parmesan will be great), put it on thinly sliced baked zucchini – here you’ve got very tasty sandwiches.

See – large number of recipes with different ingredients. Choose your favorite zucchini rezept and make it!

As most of the veggies zucchini is very healthy. You’ll surely be impressed with the nutritional bounty that zucchini offers. It is very low-calorie and high in fiber, and has no cholesterol or unhealthy fats. It is also loaded with vitamins and minerals.

With many options on cooking zucchini available, the quickest and easiest is to sauté the vegetable is in a pan on a stove. Zucchini will brown and turn tender. I prefer using butter over oil to help it brown and also for an added creaminess and nutty flavor. Like I have mentioned before, zucchini are over all pretty bland so they carry out other flavors beautifully. That is why I love adding other ingredients to my sautéed zucchini. My favorite is garlic.

Here is couple tips how to make the best sautéed zucchini with garlic:

Use a wider pan to spread the pieces out so they brown instead of steaming. Don’t salt your zucchini at the beginning so they don’t release water and turn mushy, overcooking and peeling the skin will turn them mushy as well, making you think about what to do with mushy zucchini.