Courgette fritters: a healthy snack

The courgette is one of the most versatile vegetables there is. Griddled, sauteed, raw as a carpaccio, as a soup… and in fritters. Yes, as you can see, courgette fritters are extremely easy and convenient to make. A recipe that is liked by everyone, particularly the little ones, who are difficult to feed vegetables to, but who will find this way of eating courgette particularly attractive (as they look similar to shrimp fritters).  

If that was not enough, healthy courgette fritters can be eaten as a side dish, as a starter or as informal nibbles, so they can be a solution to various occasions or different social contexts throughout the day.  The technique that we are going to tell you about can also be used for other vegetables or tubers, so you could adapt the recipe according to your needs or to what you have in the fridge.  

Now, let’s look at the courgette fritters recipes that you can make at home. Note them down!

Ingredients for the courgette fritters

What you will need to make our courgette fritters are some very easy to find ingredients that you are very likely to have in the fridge or the larder:

• 150 g onion
• 400 g courgette
• 2 eggs
• 1 garlic clove
• 80 g grated cheese
• 45 g de cornflour (maicena)
• Olive oil
• salt
• pepper

How to make courgette fritters – step by step

Although courgette is the main ingredient of this recipe, it may be interesting to add cheese to the recipe, which will give it a juiciness and a delicious additional flavour. To prepare our courgette fritters with cheese, start by chopping the ingredients. Firstly, chop the onion into very small pieces. Next, grate the courgette, which we recommend, using a grater or a julienne cutter.  

And next comes one of the most important steps: removing the water from the courgette. To remove the excess liquid, which could make things difficult for you whether you use the frying pan or the oven to make your fritters, put the grated courgette into a strainer and apply pressure to it. Additionally, leave them to drain  for another 20 to 30 minutes to ensure that they have released all the water they contain.

In the meanwhile, put the chopped onion, the two eggs and the (grated) clove of garlic into a bowl. Add the grated courgette when the water has been removed, as well as the cheese and cornflour, which will thicken  the mixture. As a substitute to this, you can also add breadcrumbs. Lastly, season it and mix everything together until you have a wet and even mixture that you can make into portions without it falling apart.  

To fry the courgette fritters, put plenty of oil in a frying pan (so that they are covered by the oil) and heat it to a medium to high heat. Take up some of the mixture with a spoon, put it into the frying pan and quickly shape it. You need to make the fritters about 1 centimetre thick  so that they cook well on both sides, and fry them until they are golden in colour. When they are cooked, take them out of the pan and remove the excess oil by placing them on paper kitchen towel.  

If you want to  make oven-baked courgette fritters, you will need to repeat similar steps to the ones above. Pre-heat the oven to 200 ºC and place some oiled greaseproof paper on a suitable oven tray, start placing portions of the mixture on this, pressing them down a little to flatten them as you go. Repeat this process as many times as there is mixture available. Then, bake the fritters for around 15 minutes, turn them over, and bake them a little longer until both sides are golden in colour.

Alternatively, if you want to give a different touch to your dish, you can make courgette and oat fritters. To add the oats to the recipe, you can either hydrate them beforehand with water or add them directly as flakes when mixing the rest of the ingredients in the bowl.

Accompaniment to courgette fritters

What can I accompany my healthy courgette fritters with? A yogurt sauce, goats cheese, cream cheese, or home-made tomato sauce will be your best partners.