Summer is all about having way too much zucchini. It’s funny — I was never a huge fan when I was a kid, but now that I have discovered how versatile and delicious these little buggers can be, I really like them. This is one of the first recipes I ever developed, and it is still one of my favorites.
As with pretty much every recipe, I come up with (baked goods being an exception), feel free to adjust the ingredients and the amounts to suit your taste. This recipe works with zucchini, yellow crookneck, patty pans, and any and all varieties of summer squash. I’d guess it would work well with winter squash too.
RECIPE: Makes a little over 2 quarts soup
2lb (roughly 6 cups cut up) Summer Squash zucchini, yellow crookneck, the little round flat zucchini, the big round light green ones, even the one you forgot to pick that is now bigger than your cat
1 large yellow onion, diced
2 TBL coconut oil (I recommend raw, virgin coconut oil)
1 TBL good olive oil
4 cloves garlic, diced
1 tsp veg salt
2 TBL fresh dill or – not and, OR Italian parsley (use fresh! If you don’t have fresh you can sub 1 tsp dried)
1 quart (4 cups) low sodium broth (make your own, or use store bought. Any flavor is fine, if not using low sodium omit the salt)
1 TBL coconut butter (or 1/2 cup coconut milk)
1 lemon (*make 1 long ribbon of as much of the peel as possible, then use the lemon for juice)
Over medium heat, sauté your Onions in your Coconut Oil while you chop your squash (about 5-8 minutes). Add your Squash, Olive Oil, Salt, Garlic and Lemon peel “ribbon”; sauté until the squash is lightly cooked.
Add your Stock; turn your stove to medium-high and bring the soup to a boil. Turn the heat back to medium and simmer for 10-15 minutes until your zucchini is tender but not too mushy.
Add your Dill (or Parsley) and Coconut Butter (or Coconut Milk). Remove the lemon “ribbon”. To make a lemon “ribbon”, use a vegetable peeler to carefully make 1 long strip out of the peel *see the 3rd photo below.
Use an immersion blender to blend the soup. A regular stand blender works too, but you may need to process your soup in batches. And be careful, it’s hot! Blend until your soup is the consistency you like. I used to leave a few chunks, but now I like to pureé until the soup reaches a smooth and even creaminess.
Squeeze the juice from your lemon over the soup — you can mix it in or leave it on top. Enjoy!
This is a lemon “ribbon”. It takes some practice to make, but is so much easier to fish out of the hot soup when you’re done with it.
