This shaved zucchini salad is so fun to arrange and put together–like making edible art! It’s also simple to prepare. This salad would be great alongside my marinated and grilled tempeh.
If you grow zucchini, you understand the abundance that comes in the summer. The first one feels like a miracle: “We grew this! It started as a seed and now there’s a zucchini!!”
Then you get 10 of them all at the same time haha. My main strategies for using it at home: grill with olive oil and seasoning, shred for zucchini bread, freeze dices of it to sneak into smoothies, or sauté with other summer vegetables. We also make it into a pretty shaved zucchini salad like this one.
I threw this shaved zucchini salad together as part of our dinner one night and it turned out so great. We received some beautiful champagne vinegar as a gift from Brightland and I knew that it would be nice with the slightly sweet and mild zucchini, some punchy shallots, toasty almonds, and a good sprinkle of chilli in the mix. I recommend alternatives to champagne vinegar in the recipe notes.
This salad has all the flavors and the only piece of gear that you need to make it is a vegetable peeler! Summer simplicity at its finest.
Shaved Zucchini Salad with Plums, Herbs & Almonds
Ingredients
- 1 small shallot, finely diced (about 3 tablespoons diced shallot)
- 2 tablespoons champagne vinegar
- 3 tablespoons sliced almonds
- 2 medium zucchinis
- 2 golden plums (or peaches, nectarines, other variety of plum)
- 2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves, chopped
- ⅓ cup flat leaf parsley, chopped
- 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- sea salt and ground black pepper, to taste
- ½ teaspoon ground dried chillies, or to taste
- 2 oz (56 grams) soft vegan cheese, crumbled
Equipment
- Vegetable Peeler
Notes
- I use a soft vegan cheese made here in Canada called VegNature. It’s cashew based and fermented with a crust of herbs/spices. It kind of looks like a typical goat cheese log and eats that way too. So good!
- I used Brightland’s new Parasol champagne vinegar, but you have options: white wine vinegar, white balsamic vinegar, and regular balsamic vinegar all work.
- I use the ground Guntur Sannam Chillies from Diaspora Co. in this salad for a bit of heat. You could substitute Aleppo pepper or even slightly crushed up dried red chili flakes.
- I also garnished my salad with a torn zucchini flower. This is a pretty touch, but not essential.
Instructions
- Place the shallots in a small bowl and cover them with the champagne vinegar. Let them sit for 10-15 minutes while you prepare the rest of the salad.
- Toast your sliced almonds in one of two ways: on a baking sheet in a 350 oven for 10 minutes (my preferred way for even toasting) or in a skillet over medium heat with frequent stirring for about 5 minutes. Set aside to cool.
- Using a vegetable peeler, shave your zucchini lengthwise. Once you get down to the middle of the zucchini, it will be more difficult to shave. I usually get the zucchini down to about ½ an inch of core. I save the core for a stir fry, zucchini bread or other use!
- Arrange the shaved zucchini on your serving plate. I like to curl the pieces a bit for presentation. Spoon the vinegar-soaked shallots evenly over the shaved zucchini. Drizzle all of the remaining vinegar as well.
- Cut the golden plums into little wedges and arrange them on top of the zucchini. Sprinkle the chopped thyme and parsley over the top of the shaved zucchini salad. Evenly drizzle the extra virgin olive oil over the top as well.
- Finish the salad by liberally and evenly seasoning it with salt and pepper. Sprinkle the ground chillies over the top. Gently crush the sliced toasted almonds with your fingers as you sprinkle them over top. Evenly scatter the small bits of vegan cheese throughout the shaved zucchini salad.
- I like to let the salad sit for 5-10 minutes so that the acid from the vinegar and the salt can soften the zucchini a bit. Serve the salad up right after!
Made this to go with dinner tonight. I used zucchini and golden plums from a local farm. I substituted the almonds with pepitas due to an allergy, and used vegan Boursin for the cheese. It was fantastic! I served it with pesto gigante beans and focaccia. My husband loved it too.
I used the base recipe and pivoted due my cheapness and using what I had at home. I subbed red onion for shallots, white wine vinegar for champagne vinegar, red pepper flakes for dried chilies and peaches for plums. All pretty similar flavor profile to the recipe. I loved it! Refreshing and thyme and zucchini are a match made in Hawaii
Thanks for the great recipe. It was too hot to cook, and this was perfect no cook meal. I added a can of chickpeas and used feta cheese. Me and partner enjoyed it very much!
Delicious , easy to make, summer salad
This is one of my go to. My family remembered this recipe from last summer and have been asking for it. Easy, fresh and delicious
This is such a lovely recipe! Made it for my fancy, birthday picnic last year and it was spot on! Definitely flexible as most salads should be. Twirling zucchini into little rosettes is a level of sophistication I didn’t know I had access to until this recipe :)
Perfect!! easy!! delicious!!! Thank you!
This was so good! I used peaches and my boyfriend (mr. Never finishes his salad) went back for seconds! Laura you never fail to deliver. I am in awe of your brilliant way with veggies that seems so simple natural and yet elegant and always delicious. Thank you for being you and bringing your talents to the world
Made this last night with fresh zucchini from the garden and fresh herbs – really nice. A refreshing change on both salad and zucchini. thanks!
Hi, I made this salad tonight. Everyone enjoyed it. Thank you for sharing.
Made this tonight with a couple of substitutions/additions based on the ingredients I had on hand. It was soooo good, thank you again for another excellent (and easy) recipe!