11 Easy Recipes That Use Zucchini Over a Campfire

Zucchini keeps for days without a fridge, which makes it one of the few fresh vegetables worth carrying on a longer trip. These campfire zucchini recipes all work around its water, which is what turns it grey over a fire.

Some come off the fire charred and salty with cheese, some are soft and stewed, and some end up crisp at the edges.

Take a folding campfire grill grate if the fire ring hasn’t got one, and a vegetable grill basket so the slices don’t drop through.

1. Grilled Zucchini with Balsamic, Parmesan and Pine Nuts

Thick rounds grilled until they have real char, then finished with shaved parmesan, toasted pine nuts, and balsamic.

Cut them at least half an inch thick, because thin slices collapse before they ever take any color.

Dress them after they come off the fire rather than before, since balsamic scorches on a hot grate.

Toast the pine nuts in a dry pan while the coals settle, and stand over them, because they go from pale to burnt in under a minute.

2. Zucchini and Squash in Foil

The default campsite version, and the one that goes wrong most often.

Leave the packet open along the top instead of sealing it, so steam escapes and the squash roasts rather than boiling in its own liquid.

Use heavy-duty 18-inch foil and a single layer of rounds, since a deep pile in a sealed packet is exactly how you end up with grey mush.

3. Sausage and Zucchini Skillet

Smoked sausage renders enough fat to cook everything else in the pan, which means no oil bottle in the food box.

Into that go zucchini half-moons, corn, and red pepper, all browned together.

Brown the sausage first and lift it out, then cook the zucchini in the empty pan so it sears instead of stewing underneath the meat.

Work in two batches if the pan looks crowded, because a full pan drops the temperature and everything steams.

The sausage goes back in at the end only to warm through.

4. Calabacitas

New Mexico’s answer to a squash glut is to cook it down with corn, roasted green chile, and cheese.

The chile comes frozen or canned and travels fine, so this needs almost nothing fresh besides the zucchini itself.

Keep the lid off and let it cook down, since the corn and the zucchini both throw off a lot of water.

Stir the cheese in off the heat so it melts into a sauce instead of seizing into strings.

5. Zucchini and Halloumi Skewers

Halloumi holds its shape over a fire instead of melting through the grate, which is the whole reason it works out here.

Ribbon the zucchini with a peeler and fold each strip onto the skewer between the cubes of cheese.

Use flat flat metal skewers rather than round wooden ones, or the pieces spin in place every time you turn them.

Finish with lemon and parsley, and go heavier on the acid than feels right, because halloumi is very salty on its own.

6. Greek Zucchini Fritters

One batch takes several zucchini, which makes this the recipe that finally puts a dent in the pile.

Grated zucchini, herbs, feta, and egg, fried in a shallow pan until the edges go crisp and lacy.

Salt the grated zucchini and let it sit fifteen minutes, then wring it out in a clean towel and keep wringing after you think you are finished.

Wet batter is why fritters fall apart in the pan, and there is far more water in there than you expect.

Do the grating at home with a stainless steel box grater and carry it already salted and squeezed in a bag.

7. Corn, Zucchini and Oaxaca Cheese Quesadillas

Cook the filling first and let it cool for a few minutes, because a hot wet filling steams the tortilla soft from the inside.

Sautéed corn and zucchini go in with a melting cheese, then the whole thing crisps in a dry pan.

Oaxaca pulls apart in strings the way mozzarella does, and either one is fine.

8. Sausage Stuffed Zucchini Boats

Halve the zucchini lengthwise, scoop out the seedy middle, fill with Italian sausage and tomato, and cover with cheese.

Scoop deeper than you want to, because the shell keeps cooking and a thick one stays raw while the top browns.

They need a lid to melt the cheese, so a dutch oven with a few coals on top is how these get done over a fire.

Cook the sausage filling at home and they only need about fifteen minutes at the site.

9. Skillet Ratatouille

This is the one dish here where soft is the point.

Eggplant, zucchini, pepper, and tomato all get cut to roughly the same size and cooked in stages rather than dumped in together.

Set the pan off to the side of the coals and let it go slowly, since a hard boil turns it into sauce.

It improves sitting overnight, so make it the first night and eat the rest cold with bread the next day.

10. Sautéed Zucchini and Potatoes

Potatoes and zucchini cook at completely different speeds, and ignoring that is the only real way to ruin this.

Par-boil or roast the potatoes at home so all they need at the site is browning.

The zucchini goes in for the last five minutes, once the potatoes already have a crust on them.

Garlic and parsley come in at the very end so the garlic does not burn in the hot fat.

Anything left over is breakfast with an egg on top.

11. Grilled Zucchini Caprese Salad

Grill the zucchini early, while the fire is still hot, then let it come back to room temperature before you build anything.

It gets layered with tomato, fresh mozzarella, and basil, and dressed with balsamic at the table.

Warm zucchini melts the mozzarella into a puddle, and zucchini straight out of the cooler tastes of nothing at all.

Salt the tomato slices on their own for a few minutes first and pour off whatever collects underneath.

Notes on Keeping Zucchini from Going Soggy

Zucchini is mostly water, and every method on this list is really a way of dealing with that.

Cut it thick, in rounds or spears about half an inch through, so there is something left once the water has cooked off.

Salt it and let it drain whenever you are grating it or slicing it thin, then squeeze it out before it goes near heat.

Give it room on the grate or in the pan, because pieces touching each other trap steam between them.

A collapsible camping colander is worth the space in the food box for exactly this, since salting and draining is most of the actual work.

Tips for Cooking Vegetables at a Campsite

Zucchini keeps for days out of the fridge, which makes it one of the few fresh vegetables worth bringing on a longer trip.

Buy them small and firm, because the enormous ones out of the garden are watery and full of seeds.

Slice everything before you leave and carry it in a bag, and most of these become one pan and ten minutes.

Cook the vegetable dishes on the same coals as the meat rather than after it, since a fire that has burned all the way down will not give you any browning at all.

For the rest of the trip, 7 dutch oven campfire dinner ideas and camping side dishes for a crowd cover the mains and the sides, and easy make-ahead camping meals is the prep list.