Apple Pie, but with Zucchini…I’m Not Kidding!

A recipe for using up the beautiful bounty of summer squash

Let me ask you a question…what’s more American than apple pie? Using zucchini instead! Maybe you know, but apples aren’t actually native to the Americas while zucchini comes from Mesoamerica…so maybe there’s nothing more American than a Zucchini Pie!

You might think an apple pie made with zucchini instead of apples sounds strange, but I’m telling you that it actually makes a lot of sense. What do we love about apples in a pie? They’re able to absorb the flavors of the spices and fat and sugar, and they fall apart to make a beautiful, thick filling in the crust. Now, what about zucchini? It’s actually an amazingly adaptable vegetable—it can be cut into spirals and tossed with sauce to be a “noodle”, shredded and fried like a potato, added to ground meat to create extra-juicy meatballs or mixed with sugar and flour and transformed into bread. It’s soft, absorbent, and doesn’t have its own strong flavor, so it is surprisingly able to do many different things…like replacing the apples in apple pie!

I understand you might be asking yourself, “why fix something that isn’t broken?” Well, it’s summertime and apples aren’t in season but zucchini is…if you go to the farmers market (or your backyard, if you’re lucky enough to have a garden) you’ll see many, many zucchinis saying to you, Pick me, pick me! So why not make a pie?

One very important thing when making this recipe: don’t skip the step where you blanch the zucchini in the vinegar water. If you cook it in regular water, it won’t have a balanced flavor that mirrors a good apple pie.

So please make this and tell me what you think. And if you have friends who are offering you their extra zucchini, send this recipe to them and they can give you a slice of pie instead!

Mock Apple Pie

Makes one 9-inch pie