Baby Zucchini and Blossoms with Sofrito

Baby Zucchini and Blossoms with Sofrito

Baby Zucchini and Blossoms with Sofrito

Ingredients

  • 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
  • 1/2 white onion, finely diced
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 big pinch chili flakes
  • 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1 tablespoon tomato paste
  • 2 tablespoons red wine
  • 1/2 pound baby zucchini
  • Minced fresh flat-leaf parsley
  • 6 squash blossoms, petals separated

Instructions

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It’s zucchini season, everybody! That means the grocery store is going to be over-run and every home gardener you know is going to be forcing them on you by the pound! And while fresh produce is great, what happens when you run out of zucchini recipes?! Time to get creative. Introducing this recipe for Baby Zucchini and Blossoms with Sofrito!

The best way to deal with a surplus of zucchini is to pick them when they’re still tiny and delicious! This recipe calls for extra small baby zucchini, so you don’t even have to deal with chopping them up! And who wants to do any extra kitchen work on a hot, summer day? If you are a brand new chef you may be intimidated by seeing “sofrito” in the title of this recipe.

Don’t sweat it. While it may have a fancy name, sofrito is essentially a bunch of veggies and tomatoes cooked down to make a super flavorful sauce. Usually, it requires a lot of chopping and prepping and sweating over a hot pan for hours, but not with this recipe! That’s right, this recipe has a shortcut for making sofrito that is just as flavorful and rich, but ready in half the time. See? There’s nothing holding you back from tackling this dish tonight! Another part of this recipe that might seem a little strange is the zucchini blossoms. Again, nothing to worry about! These flowers bring more to the table than just beauty and nice smells. Zucchini blossoms have a delicate squash flavor and a nice, velvety texture. Now that we’re all caught up on the vocabulary and what’s-what, it’s time to start cooking! While this sofrito is quick, it does need a little time to simmer and build up flavors so prep that first.

  1. Get a nice saucepan and drizzle it with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. Once it’s nice and hot, add in the onion, garlic, chili flakes, and kosher salt. Let everything get nice, soft, and brown, then add in the secret sofrito ingredient; tomato paste.
  2. Stir everything together until it’s evenly mixed, then add a couple of tablespoons of red wine to loosen it up. You’re already over halfway done! Add the baby zucchini and partially cover the pot. Let things cook, but keep an eye on the pot!
  3. The zucchini should be fork-tender in just about 10 minutes. Now all that’s left to do is stir in half the parsley and the squash blossoms, and boom!

You’ve got yourself a pan of baby zucchini and blossoms with sofrito! Serve it up into individual plates, garnish with the rest of the parsley and the blossoms, and you’re ready to eat! Look how easy that was!