Light Baked Stuffed Squash Blossoms
These light baked stuffed squash blossoms are the perfect way to use up a lot of male squash blossoms in the garden.
When I discovered my garden was overflowing with male squash blossoms AND that I could eat them I set about looking for a recipe to use. I searched online, of course, and many not all but many recipes called for deep frying or pan frying the stuffed and breaded squash blossoms. I’m just not that into frying foods, especially if it’s already a healthy food then I have a hard time frying it up, and squash blossoms are relatively low calorie, roughly 5 calories a cup. Plus I thought filling it with cheese and then frying it was a double whammy. Now I’m never one to shy away from a good piece of fried chicken or enjoy french fries but such lovely food straight out of the garden just begs for a lighter touch.
Most of the recipes I found followed the same ricotta, egg, herbs, filling so I planned to use roughly that same idea. Another way to think of the cheese filling is to envision the cheese layer in a good lasagna, if you have a recipe you love for that scale it down and use it. If not follow the super easy, tasty ricotta filling I used, it’s just about perfect.
A few notes about this recipe–the amounts of filling and panko depend on the size of your squash blossoms and how much you squeeze in each blossom–so if you have HUGE blossoms you’ll probably make fewer and fill them a little more and likewise smaller blossoms will take less filling so you might need a few extra to use the filling up. I used average sized blossoms in the recipe but of course all plants will have all sizes of blossoms.
Light Baked Stuffed Squash Blossoms
Ingredients
- 16 squash blossoms with 1-3stems if possible–the male flower of a zucchini or pumpkin plant, go for just normal sizes if you have a choice
- 1 cup ricotta
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp salt
- pinch black pepper
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
- 1 garlic clove minced–use as much as you like, cloves varysize so choose one that suits your taste preference
- 1 egg
- 1 pinch salt
- 3/4-1 cup panko bread crumbs
Instructions
- heat the oven to 400˚
- grease a baking sheet big enough to hold the blossoms with out crowding them
- look over your squash blossoms and make sure they are free of dirt and bugs, use a clean paint brush to flick any dirt way-if they have bugs in them a quick soak in lightly salted water will drive the bugs out BUT this will also make the blossoms a little more tender and prone to tearing, you can also remove the insides of the flower, the stamen, if you want to but it's not necessary because it cooks through and it's soft when cooked
- put the ricotta, egg, salt, pepper, basil and garlic in a small bowl and mix well
- fill the cleaned squash blossoms with the ricotta mixture by using a spoon or a piping bag, dividing the filling evenly between the blossoms
- once they're all filled give each one a twist by holding the stem and the top of the blossom and turning it, this will seal the blossom so it can be dipped and rolled without having the filling flop out
- to “bread” them beat the egg with the salt in a small bowl, place about half the panko in another bowl, both should be big enough to hold a blossom
- dip each blossom carefully in the egg, let the excess drip back in for a moment and the roll lightly in the panko and then back to the baking sheet it goes
- repeat with the rest of the blossoms adding more panko to the bowl as needed
- bake in the preheated oven on a middle rack for roughly 15 minutes, watch them towards the end because you don’t want them to brown too much or singe a little and bread crumbs are notorious (in my house) for burning
Nutrition
Im a Alaskan that has moved to Baja and live in the farmlands and have lots of blossoms
I’ve been making these for years but this baked recipe is great
Made them and served with fresh avocado, pico de Gallo and a little fresh creama.
My family loved it
Thanks for posting recipe
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I want to live in BAJA!! Glad you like the baked version!
I made this culinary delight using this recipe and it was a hit! Much more simple than I anticipated. I used the piping bag to fill the blossoms and highly recommend it. The baked version is much lighter for this tender fresh garden delicacy. I am so grateful and will do it again. I wish I could upload photos.
These. Were. Amazing!! I didn’t have any ricotta, so I subbed a cream cheese/goat cheese mixture. So delish, this will be a regular summer dish, thank you!!