Sautéed zucchini is a quick, easy, and healthy side dish. Thanks to a delicious garlic butter, this is one of our favorite zucchini recipes. You only need five minutes of cooking time, and it’s time to eat!
Watch the Video
There are lots of ways to cook zucchini, but the quickest is to pan-fry or sauté it in a pan on the stove.
By cooking zucchini this way, the zucchini browns on the outside and becomes tender on the inside.
Key Ingredients
- Zucchini: I like medium zucchini best. Any larger and the middle turns a bit too mushy and squashy for me. When buying zucchini, look for them to be dark green and firm.
- Butter: Adds a nutty flavor and helps the zucchini to brown. You can substitute it with olive oil.
- Garlic: I love the garlic butter in this zucchini recipe. It’s so delicious.
- Green onion, lemon juice, and parmesan: These are optional but make the zucchini extra delicious. I love stirring in sliced green onions, a splash of lemon juice, and some parmesan just before serving.
How to Sauté Zucchini
Use a wide skillet when sautéing zucchini. This way, the zucchini can spread and brown instead of steaming on top of each other. (I use the same trick when cooking mushrooms.)
You’ll heat your skillet over medium-high heat, add some butter, and then, when it’s melted, toss in the garlic and zucchini. Spread them out in the skillet and let them brown in places. I don’t stir too much so that the zucchini has more chance to brown.
When you start seeing some brown spots, stir and cook until the zucchini is tender. At this point, season with salt, pepper, and optional ingredients like scallions, lemon juice, and parmesan. Adding the salt towards the end prevents the zucchini from turning mushy and soggy.
Recipe Variations
Sautéed zucchini has lots of possible recipe variations. Here are a few of our favorites:
- Make it cheesy and stir in more grated parmesan or other cheese before serving. I love feta!
- We love the combination of garlic and butter, but you can use other spices. Try Italian seasoning, Za’atar spice blend, Cajun seasoning, or an Indian spice blend like curry or chili powder.
- Add extra crunch with toasted sliced almonds or buttery pine nuts.
- Stir in chopped tomatoes and cook until the zucchini is crisp-tender and the tomatoes collapse a little and release some of their juices.
- Stir in cooked or canned beans, such as white beans, chickpeas, and black beans.
More Zucchini Recipes
- Garlic Roasted Zucchini with Feta
- Easy Garlic Zucchini Noodles
- Stuffed Zucchini Boats
- Parmesan Baked Zucchini Chips
Quick Easy Sauteed Zucchini
- PREP
- COOK
- TOTAL
Sautéed zucchini is quick, easy, and healthy. We love cooking the zucchini with butter, minced garlic, salt, and pepper. That said, we have shared several variations in the article above.
Watch Us Make the Recipe
You Will Need
1 ¼ pounds chopped zucchini (2 medium)
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon minced garlic (3 cloves)
1 scallion, thinly sliced, optional
1 to 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice, optional
1/4 cup fresh grated parmesan cheese, optional
Salt and fresh ground black pepper
Directions
1How you cut the zucchini is up to you. You can slice it into rounds, cut it into half moons, or chop it into bite-size pieces.
2Melt the butter in a wide skillet over medium-high heat. Add the zucchini and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until the zucchini is browned in places and tender, 3 to 5 minutes.
3Turn off the heat, stir in the scallions and cheese (if using), and squeeze in lemon juice. Taste and season with salt and black pepper. Serve immediately.
Adam and Joanne's Tips
- Vegan modification: Substitute the butter with olive oil or plant-based butter, and either leave out the cheese or replace the parmesan with a bit of nutritional yeast.
- Alternatives to parmesan cheese include feta cheese, goat cheese, or a sharp cheddar.
- The nutrition facts provided below are estimates.
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I only had zucchini, garlic, oil, butter, and salt. My family said it was the best zucchini. My daughter who doesn’t like zucchini ate 5 plates of it. She usually barely eats anything. It disappeared. I can’t wait to try again when I have the rest of the ingredients. Thank you!
Soo delicious! Everyone loved it! And it’s quick and easy to make too. I’m going to try your other vegetable recipes.
Easy and delicious! Love this recipe!
Haven’t made this yet and plan on making it for Thanksgiving. Just need a few suggestions. We will be 28 at our dinner table and would like to know how and if you get the same results if you make this in the oven and a day ahead?
As zucchini sits, it gives up a bit of extra moisture. That said, the dish will still be tasty!
Wonderful recipe. I swapped scallions for small white onion and sautued it a little before adding zucchini and garlic cloves! So amazing! Thanks
Made this today and it was sooooo good. Didn’t have scallops or Parmesan, used onion powder and skipped the cheese. Thank you for a great simple recipe.
So happy you enjoyed it! Thank you for coming to let us know 🙂
Thanks so much for this recipe, just finished eating a plate of it and it was easy to make, with ingredients most of us have on hand but above all delicious. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
My dear wife passed away suddenly two years ago.Suddenly I had to learn to cook since that was her domain and she provided wonderful meals for decades. Well, this recipe hit the spot for simplicity and minimum number of ingredients.My first home grown zucchini begged to be utilized and by following the directions I had a wonderful meal. I’ll be having this meal more often in the future since my zucchini plants are thriving.
We are so very sorry for your loss. Thank you for coming back and sharing. We are thrilled that you were able to use up some of your homegrown zucchini!
Absolutely delicious. Tender-crisp, full of flavor and the lemon and Parmesan are the perfect finish. Only change was I sauteed the garlic cloves in the butter and then pulled them out before adding the squash then added back in about 30secs before I turned off the heat. I have a terrible tendency to burn the garlic.
Delicious recipe, I had lime so added that instead of lemon and it was fabulous!
I would love to try this recipe but I am allergic to all onions. What could I use as a replacement for onions?
You can leave the garlic out without any other modifications.
Best Zucchini recipe ever. I omitted the scallions and used the lemon.
Thanks for that lovely recipe. I was looking for a zucchini recipe without tomatoes and just as a side dish for the main meal and this was absolutely brilliant. Easy, fast and delicious. Will make that again…. and again (so many zucchinis in the garden…).
Unfortunately I didn’t have any parm. I think that would’ve been so good. They were still tasty using powdered parm though. I’ll definitely make this again.
So my daughter Leandra now grows her own zucchini cherry tomatoes and strawberries she gave me zucchini and I just made them like you said and my husband love it I loved it we will be making this a lot at home thank you for the recipe it’s a keeper