With all the delicious summer produce right now, it’s the perfect time to nudge your diet to include more healthy foods! Gardens, produce markets, and CSAs are abundant with zucchini, tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, basil, eggplant, and yellow summer squash.
But no one wants to spend a bunch of time in the kitchen on these beautiful summer days, so what we want is a quick and easy recipe that includes healthy summer produce and is also delicious.
This Summer Squash Saute fits the bill. So easy and so delicious. And so good for you.
Head to the garden on a warm summer morning and gather some buttery yellow summer squash, tender baby zucchini, a fresh onion and garlic, and some juicy, warm tomatoes. Sauté it all together. Add some white beans (optional, but it makes this dish a main dish). Top it with a drizzle of this luscious homemade Creamy Italian Dressing, serve with some crusty bread, and you have a delicious, nutrient-packed, veggie-centric meal that took only minutes to prepare.
How to Select Summer Squash
If you want your meals to taste good, you have to start with quality ingredients. Growing your own garden makes this easy (as long as you pick your zucchini before it grows to the size of a baseball bat!), but if you don’t have a garden, you can still get quality produce at the farmers market or grocery store if you know what to look for.
When choosing summer squash (zucchini, yellow squash, crookneck squash, etc.) opt for the very small (even tiny) squash. The small ones will be more tender, more buttery, and better flavored than the larger ones. And they’ll have fewer seeds. They should have glossy skins and be firm to the touch.
Summer Squash Saute
Prep
Cook
Total
Yield 5 cups
A delicious and easy meal for summer time produce.
Ingredients
- 1 medium onion, halved and sliced
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 medium (or 2 very small) zucchini, halved lengthwise and sliced (about 2 cups)
- 1 medium (or 2 very small) yellow summer squash, halved lengthwise and sliced (about 2 cups)
- 1 1/4 teaspoons dried basil
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon granulated onion
- 1/2 - 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon granulated garlic
- 3/4 cup cooked great northern beans, drained but not rinsed
- 2 medium fresh tomatoes, chopped
- 1 tablespoon Jennifer's Kitchen Creamy Italian Dressing - optional
Instructions
- Heat medium saucepan over medium heat until warm. Add onion and saute for 2 minutes. (Use this method to saute without oil OR saute in 1 tablespoon of oil.)
- Stir in minced garlic and saute for an additional minute.
- Stir in zucchini, summer squash, and seasonings and stir to combine. Cover and reduce heat to just over low. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are tender, 10 to 14 minutes or until vegetables are tender-crisp.
- Increase heat to medium. Stir in beans and tomatoes. Cook until heated through, about 2 minutes. Stir in Creamy Italian Dressing if using.
Serve hot with crusty bread or over pasta or rice.
One quick request: if you like this recipe, please leave a rating and a comment. Ratings help more people find these healthy recipes!
Notes
The amount of time needed to saute the summer squash will depend on how mature the squash is, how much liquid is in the squash, and how hot your stove is.
If the tomatoes are really seedy, you might want to remove some of the seeds.
* * * This recipe for Summer Squash Saute is … gluten-free, plant based, oil-free, sugar-free, high in fiber, dairy free, egg-free, vegetarian, vegan, and made from real, whole foods.
Hi are we allowed to pin your recipes because I can’t.
Absolutely, Sarah. I love it when people take the time to pin my images to Pinterest. You should be able to do it by using the url of the post, BUT we just added a pin button to the website, so now it’s much easier!! 🙂
Simply click on the little “Pinterest save button” that appears in the upper left corner of each image when you hover over the image.
Thanks!