Zucchini Slice

Zucchini slice is one of those quick, easy, light meals that is great to have as a stand-by.  It also makes a good lunch box idea, for the kids or grown up kids!

I had a client ask me recently if I had a good recipe for zucchini slice.  I do make zucchini slice, but for me it is usually one of those ‘pot luck’ dishes where you mix a bit of this and that, depending on what you have (including zucchini in there somewhere) and voila, you have zucchini slice!

So I decided to standardise a recipe for my so-called zucchini slice.

True to form I only had 2 zucchinis when I decided to do this which would not make a very large slice, so I had to add something else.  Pumpkin teams beautifully with both zucchini and ricotta and I had plenty in the fridge, so that was an easy choice.

A traditional zucchini slice includes bacon, not mine.  Bacon is one food I really dislike.  It is also a processed meat and there is now overwhelming evidence that processed meat can increase your risk of bowel cancer as well as pancreatic and stomach cancer.  So I am not sure you want to include it in your zucchini slice either!  The bacon is supposed to provide lots of flavour, yet I do not think my zucchini slice is tasteless.  If you like you can throw some fresh herbs into it – basil, dill, parsley or chives would all help it taste even more delicious!

To cut down on the number of eggs used, I added some ricotta, which gave the slice a lovely soft texture.  I also added feta cheese into the slice in place of tasty cheese.  Tasty cheese is much higher in fat (roughly 30% fat) than feta (low fat varieties are around 16% fat), but also as feta is also very flavoursome (due in part to the high salt content!) so you don’t need to use very much.

I have used other vegetables when making this slice in the past, including carrots and sweet potato.  Sometimes I throw in some spinach, fresh or the frozen (and thawed) spinach.  It always tastes really good!

This can also be made in a muffin tray for individual serves