Stuffed and Fried Zucchini Blossoms are unquestionably the best appetizer I’ve had so far. Blossoms are stuffed with cheese and shrimps then dipped into a batter and deep fried. What a combination! These are so good! Out of this world! Truly addictive! I need to make them more often. Well, until their season ends.
You can’t imagine how I was happy when I saw these lovely flowers at our local bazaar the other day. These are not very popular in this city, so I hadn’t had a chance of cooking with them before. I ate zucchini blossoms stuffed with spicy rice and cooked in a pot with olive oil just like other Turkish stuffed vegetables. They were amazing! I learnt that this is one of the two most well-known methods of cooking zucchini (or squash) blossoms. I was looking for some rare recipes though.
So we asked some friends what we can make with zucchini blossoms. Two commonly suggested recipes were rice stuffed blossoms and deep fried blossoms. But we decided on Karides ve Peynirli Kabak Çiçeği (Zucchini Blossoms with Shrimps and Cheese).
I didn’t follow the original recipe though, I made some changes and made these Stuffed and Fried Zucchini Blossoms my way. First I cooked shrimps in a garlic tomato sauce and let it cool down. If you are interested, in the original recipe shrimps are boiled in water with bay leaf, lemon zest, salt and garlic until they turn reddish and drained.
Then comes the cheese mixture. You can use whatever cheese you like. I used a special Turkish cheese curd called ‘Lor’, which is low fat and saltless. You can replace it with goat cheese, feta or mozzarella. To give the cheese a little more flavor, I mixed it with a little lemon juice and chopped parsley. Add the cooked shrimps in this cheese mixture and stuff the flowers carefully. Try not to tear them when stuffing. Don’t worry if you tear though. Just gently squeeze it in your palm. It will be okay when dipped into the batter.
I prepared the frying batter using flour, beer, salt and chili powder as told in the recipe, but I changed the amounts since I had fewer flowers. Dip stuffed blossoms into this batter and deep fry. Serve hot.
I guarantee everyone in your family will be hooked by these shrimp cheese stuffed and fried zucchini blossoms when you try.
As always: If you make this recipe, let us know what you think by rating it and leaving a comment below. And post a pic on Instagram too—tag @give_recipe so we can see!
Sign up for the FREE GiveRecipe Newsletter to get the new recipes into your inbox! And stay in touch with us on Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube and Instagram for all the latest updates.
📖 Recipe
Stuffed and Fried Zucchini Blossoms
Zucchini blossoms stuffed with shrimps and cheese. Then deep fried.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 10 1x
- Category: Snack
- Method: Frying
- Cuisine: Turkish
Ingredients
- 10 zucchini blossoms, washed and dried well.
Shrimp filling:
- 1 cup frozen shrimps
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 tomatoes, pureed
- 4 cloves garlic, chopped
- Salt to taste
Cheese filling:
- 1 cup cheese of your choice (cheese curd, goat cheese, ricotta, feta or mozzarella)
- ¼ cup chopped parsley
- 1 tablespoon lemon, if you are using a saltless cheese
Batter:
- 1 cup flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons chili powder
- ¾ cup beer
- 1 cup sunflower oil for frying
Instructions
- Heat a pan over high heat and toss in the shrimps. Let them release water. Cook until they turn reddish and drain. Put 1 tablespoon olive oil in the pan and toss in the shrimps, pureed tomatoes and chopped garlic. Cook until the tomato sauce thickens. Season with salt. Let it cool down.
- In a medium bowl combine cheese, parsley and lemon juice. Add in cooked and cold shrimps.
- Prepare the batter whisking flour, salt, chili and beer. Set aside.
- Stuff zucchini blossoms carefully with about a tablespoon of filling mixture. Squeeze gently in your palm to give them firmness.
- Heat oil in a deep pot.
- Carefully dip each stuffed blossom into the batter and place into hot oil. Repeat with the rest. Fry until golden, for about 2 minutes.
- Transfer onto paper towel and serve hot.
Nutrition
- Serving Size:
- Calories: 317
- Sugar: 2 g
- Sodium: 590.6 mg
- Fat: 26.8 g
- Carbohydrates: 13.3 g
- Protein: 6.5 g
- Cholesterol: 31.5 mg
Chris says
made these stuffed with ham and cheese. A big hit.
Turkey's For Life says
Oh, saw you asking people about these on Facebook. We've made them before but just a plain deep-fried version in a tempura batter. Love the idea of the cheese and the prawns. Now, the challenge is to find some flowers as we've not seen them on our local pazar for a couple of years or so...
Julia
Thalia @ butter and brioche says
Oh my god these look amazing.. and all that cheesy filling. Yum!