A crispy, delicious, and healthy way to serve yellow summer squash!
Summer Squash Fritters are perfect for breakfast, lunch, or dinner!
Harvesting summer squash from the garden is a yearly treat for my family. They’re tender and have a mild flavor that makes them perfect for a wide array of meals, but most especially for fritters. These squashes fritters make for a quick breakfast, or can be served as a side dish for lunch or dinner. One of my favorite breakfasts is a couple of these fritters and a hard boiled egg.
What is summer squash?
Summer squash are also known as yellow squash, straightneck squash, or bottleneck squash. They’re referred to as summer squash because they typically grow quickly and harvest in the early to mid summer. This is opposed to various winter squashes that harvest in the fall. Summer squash are yellow and have an elongated, thin neck near the stem that is reminiscent of a bottle neck.
Summer squash are easy to grow… and you’ll probably end up with too many!
Summer squash are super easy to grow! If you have a 1 square meter of space, you too can grow summer squash (though I recommend 2 square meters with two plants). Here in Michigan, if you plant a pre-started plant around the frost date in May, you’ll be eating summer squash by the end of June.
I typically plant two yellow squash and two zucchini plants, and by mid July have a counter just full of squash that need to be eaten. This overabundance is actually what led to me making fritters in the first place.
If you want to see some details about how to grow these squash and deal with common problems, check out this post from joegardener here.
Flexible fritters: how to make fritters with squash and other vegetables
I made these fritters with yellow bottleneck summer squash, but you can make all sorts of fritters with this same basic recipe.
- Zucchini fritters: This is the next easiest kind of fritter to make. Zucchini is related to and behaves very similarly to yellow summer squash. You can substitute zucchini directly for summer squash in this recipe and come out with great tasting fritters.
- Potato fritters: If you want a potato fritter somewhat similar to a hash brown patty, you can use shredded raw potato instead of squash. The moisture content of shredded potato won’t be too different from shredded yellow squash, and hence is substitutable.
In fact, if you don’t have enough summer squash to do a full batch, you can augment it with some shredded potato. - Any sort of fritter! If you can shred it into a pile similar to summer squash or potato, you can make a fritter from it. This includes harder winter squashes like acorn squash or even pumpkin. You can also make sweet potato fritters that will taste great.
Fritter tips: Fry in bulk and freeze
Because I tend to get a ton of squash harvested all at once, I like to process them all down into big batches of fritters. Feel free to scale this recipe to match however much squash you have. After frying them, I like to see the squash on baking sheets to freeze. Once they’re frozen, you can pile them into gallon bags to store in the freezer more compactly.
This is a tip I like to use for a lot of bulk foods: by freezing them individually on trays before bagging the, the fritters won’t stick together in the bag. If you move them straight from the cooling racks to bags, all the fritters will stick together.
Fritter tips: Summer Squash Fritters are even better reheated
Another reason I like to bag and freeze my fritters is because I actually think they taste even better after reheating in the oven.
Fresh from the frying pan, these fritters are delicious and soft. The act of reheating them in the oven helps crisp their outsides, which really gives the fritter a nice texture. It doesn’t hurt that by making them a bit more crispy, they’re easy to pick up and eat by hand.
Summer Squash Fritter serving suggestions
Fritters go great with a bunch of condiments. I typically serve mine with sour cream, but also often use ranch or bbq sauce.
You can also use squash fritters to make a wonderful veggie eggs benedict!
Since the fritters are relatively low call, and crispy from reheating, they make an additive side dish for many meals, including:
Recipe for Summer Squash Fritters
Summer Squash Fritters
Equipment
- 1 Food processor with grater attachment
- 1 hand held grater If you don't have a food processor
- 1 mixing bowl, large
- 1 Frying Pan
Ingredients
- 1 lb Summer Squash
- 1 cup flour
- 1 large onion yellow, white, or sweet
- 1 egg
- ½ tsp sugar
- ½ tsp salt
Instructions
- Start by washing your squash and cutting off the stem ends. If grating by hand, simply slice each squash in half long ways. If using a food processor, cut them into chunks just small enough to go through the processor. I used a food processor with my medium sized grating attachment.
- Process through the squash, grating them using your preferred method. Also grate an onion separately.
- Strain any extra juice from your summer squash. You can either put the grated squash into a metal strainer and press the juice out, or wrap the grated squash in cheese cloth and squeeze it. Tip: Extra juice can make for fun drinks or ice cubes.
- Add all of the ingredients to a bowl and mix. While the bowl rests, start a frying pan on medium high heat with a bit of olive oil.
- Once the pan is hot, scoop the fritter batter into the pan. I typically make each fritter about one ice cream scoop’s worth, but you can size them to your liking. Cook for around 3 minutes until the bottom starts browning. Then flip the fritter and fry for another 3 minutes or so until both sides are golden brown.
- You can cook as many fritters as your pan allows at once. It’ll go faster if you cook in batches. Replenish your oil in between each batch.Set out to cool on sheets, freezing them if desired. Enjoy 🙂