Baked Zucchini Sticks and Sweet Onion Dip

Here's a guilt-free way to enjoy the crunchy outside (and juicy inside) of a restaurant-style zucchini stick.
Ingredients
Dip
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1 medium sweet onion, about 1/2 pound, peeled and sliced
- 2 tablespoons cider vinegar
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 1 tablespoon prepared mustard
- 1 cup mayonnaise
- salt and pepper to taste
Zucchini sticks
- 3 medium zucchini, unpeeled, cut into 3"-long stick
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 1 cup coarse, dry bread crumbs (e.g., panko)*
- scant 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
- 1 tablespoon Pizza Seasoning or mixed Italian herbs
- olive oil spray
- 1/2 cup egg substitute; or 2 large eggs; or 3 egg whites, lightly beaten
- *For a gluten-free version of this recipe, use gluten-free bread crumbs.
Instructions
- To make the dip: Melt the butter in a medium frying pan over moderate heat, and add the sliced onions. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions soften, then caramelize. This should take between 10 and 15 minutes. The lower the heat, the longer it takes, but the less likely you are to burn the onions.
- Once the onions are a medium brown, remove from the heat and add the vinegar.
- Place the onions and vinegar into a small food processor. Add the honey and mustard, and process or blend until smooth.
- Add the mayonnaise and salt and pepper to taste, stirring to combine. Refrigerate, covered, until ready to serve.
- To make the zucchini sticks: Place the zucchini sticks in a colander over a bowl and sprinkle with the tablespoon of salt. Let the zucchini drain for 1 hour or longer; rinse and pat dry.
- Combine the Panko, Parmesan, and pizza seasoning; set aside.
- Preheat the oven to 425°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment, and spray the parchment with olive oil.
- Dredge sticks a few at a time in the egg, then roll in the crumb mixture. Place the sticks on the prepared baking sheet.
- Bake sticks for 12 minutes, turn over, and bake for an additional 8 minutes, until golden brown and crisp.
- Serve immediately, with sweet onion dip.
- Yield: about 3 dozen zucchini sticks, and 1 1/2 cups dip.
Nutrition Information
- Serving Size 153g (4 sticks)
- Servings Per Batch 9
Amount Per Serving:
- Calories 280
- Calories from Fat 207
- Total Fat 23g
- Saturated Fat 5g
- Trans Fat 0g
- Cholesterol 60mg
- Sodium 1190mg
- Total Carbohydrate 14g
- Dietary Fiber 1g
- Sugars 5g
- Protein 6g
* The nutrition information provided for this recipe is determined by the ESHA Genesis R&D software program. Substituting any ingredients may change the posted nutrition information.
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Reviews
Delicious! I make this recipe all the time, me and my hubby love it.
This recipe is problematic. Cut the zucchini into '3" sticks." Well how thick are they supposed to be? No idea, because the recipe doesn't say. Without a roll in flour before the egg wash, the egg doesn't stickm to the zucchini, so the panko doesn't stick to the zucchini either. A quick dredge in flour fixed that. It also needed baking for a bit longer, imo. The dip does not need a sweet onion; a regular yellow onion will caramelize better than a sweet one. It was very bland as written, so I added garlic and some fresh herbs.Hi Ms. Pris, we'd love to help address some of your concerns. We understand that additional details are always helpful (for example in the thickness of the sticks), so many of our recipes have links to a full step-by-step walkthrough on our blog, which includes photos. You can find this in the upper right-hand part of the recipe page, and you'll see that cutting the sticks about 1/4" to 1/2" thick is ideal in achieving the right results. As for your comment about dredging in flour, that's a great tip to share if your zucchini are particularly moist. We haven't experienced a problem with the egg sticking, but we can certainly imagine other bakers coming across that too if their zucchini sticks were moist. We appreciate you sharing your humble opinion, Ms. Pris, and hope that it makes others' experiences baking this recipe even better. Kye@KAF
The dip is very, very good!!!!
This is one of the best zucchini recipes I discovered! We love it either with the sweet onion dip or with salsa, a little spiced up tomato sauce, or simply yogurt dip. Goes well with salad.
These. Are. Amazing. Between two of us, we ate nearly all the recipe made. I reheated the few leftover the next day at 350 degrees for 10 minutes and they were still delicious! The dip does make a lot, but we tried it on burgers and turkey sandwiches...very good!
This was one of my very first Pinterest finds years ago!!!! And it remains in my top 5 dishes that I credit to Pinterest. They are delicious and the dip is amazing! I was never sure what to do with the extra dip, but from reading other comments I can't wait to try it on a salad and on sandwiches!
These were delicious! The dip alone is worth making and could be used a salad dressing. It was a tad sweet so I will reduce the honey slightly the next time I make these.
the crumbs did not stick well. Used panco. Could that have been the problem??
Panko bread crumbs should work just fine here, Marissa. We most often see this problem if the zucchini used is exceptionally high in moisture and/or didn't get long enough to drain. Perhaps that was the case? Mollie@KAF
Excellent recipe! These were a hit at a summer potluck when I had a glut of zucchini. I took another reviewer's advice and baked them on a wire rack on top of my baking sheet so I didn't have to turn them. I also baked using my oven's convection setting. Very easy. The onion dip is incredible and worth the effort to caramelize the onions. This dip would make an old boot taste amazing.
This recipe is great! I did skip the onion dip tonight since we had marinara with our pasta for dinner. The zucchini sticks were crisp and delicious, and a perfect way to use some of the overload of zucchini from the garden. My husband and I *loved* them, and the kids thought they were good (they didn't complain about eating zucchini!) My husband called it a "ten."