Crispy Summer Squash with Tomato Mozzarella

I’ve always heard people talk about the fact that you really only need one, maybe two summer squash plants. But as I am a go big or go home type of girl, and the fact that this is our second year of gardening, I planted extra. So needless to say, I am in deep with summer squash. Specifically patty pan squash. Zucchini I can figure out. I’ll make countless amounts of zucchini bread loaves. We’ll eat our weight in zucchini butter. It will go in every pasta. But patty pan squash had me a bit stumped. Of course I roasted some, I sautéed some, also added in to our pastas, but there are just so many! So here we go, I did a quick egg wash, coating them in salt, pepper, parmesan, and Panko bread crumbs, gave them a quick pan fry in olive oil then topped them with tomato sauce and mozzarella and in the oven they went. And now I’m here to tell you, it was perfect. Absolutely perfect. Crispy cheese bits, not overly cooked squash, tomato sauce, melty cheese, basil scattered over top. It was everything I want.

You’ll notice I did not do a flour coating and that is for two reasons. One this was a lunch time moment and it just felt like too much. An extra unwanted step. And in the end I didn’t want them to be overly breaded. If I wanted that I would have brought out the pot to deep fry them, which obviously would have been great. But I wanted something quick enough to make, yet so flavorful, and absolutely delicious.

Crispy Summer Squash with Tomato Mozzarella
Serves 4

3-4 medium patty pan squash, sliced 1/2” thick
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup of Panko dried bread crumbs
1 cup of parmesan shredded cheese (asiago, or an Italian mix would also work great), plus more for serving
salt and pepper to season
1 1/2 - 2 cups of tomato sauce
12ounces fresh mozzarella, torn into large chunks
olive oil for frying
fresh basil

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Set aside a cooling rack with paper towels lined over top of it. As well, set aside a baking sheet. Slice the squash and set aside.

In a shallow wide bowl whisk together the eggs.

In a second shallow bowl, mix together the Panko and shredded cheese, season with salt and pepper.

Now set up your station with a large wide skillet on the burner. Both of your shallow bowls nearby. Your sliced squash. And the paper towel cooling rack.

Warm your skillet over medium-high heat (you will want to adjust this as you are cooking, either up or down depending on how fast the squash are browning) with about 3-4 tablespoons of olive oil. The goal here is not for the squash to be submerged, but for them to be in a decent amount of oil to successfully crisp up the bottoms.

Once your oil is heated, dip your first sliced squash into the egg, fully coat, pick it up, and shake off the extra. Now place it into the Panko and parmesan bowl, fully coat it by pressing the mixture onto the squash, really press it on there. Once it is fully coated place into the hot oil. And repeat. My skillet could fit 3 medium size slices, but if you have a larger skillet this would be great to use. It will simply make the process go faster.

Cook for about 2-3 minutes per side. You want them nice and golden, but not burned, so occasionally take your spatula and peak underneath. Once they are nice and golden crisp, transfer them to the paper towel lined cooling rack. Depending on how the skillet and oil looked, I might wipe out and start with fresh oil, or not. Repeat until you have crisped up all squash slices.

Transfer the crispy squash onto the baking sheet. Top each squash with a large spoonful of tomato sauce. You don’t want to smother and cover the whole squash, leave an edge. Now add on a few chunks of the fresh mozzarella on top and place in the oven for about 8 minutes until the cheese is melted. If you want, you can turn on the broiler for the last few minutes to make it extra melted.

Remove from the oven, serve with extra shredded parmesan, freshly ground pepper and fresh basil.