The Veggie Fries Your Kid Will Actually Eat
Description
Listen, we get it: you’re still out here trying to get your child to eat straight-up vegetables; you’re still out here trying a fry-form to make it happen–that’s probably how you ended up here. You’ve probably tried a bunch of similar recipes from another site already; we know they’re just…okay? There is only so much you can do without a deep fryer; a vegetable, no matter how well prepared, is never going to have the visual and gustatory appeal of a french fry. It’s never going to be an easy sell.So, let’s be honest about what’s ahead: this is just another zucchini fries recipe–but it’s also a better one. Have we changed the game, come up with some innovation that will convert you and your toddler to give up french fries forever? Ha. What we can say is that we’ve made the appropriate tweaks necessary to both get your kid to eat this and make it practical enough for you to cook it on a semi-regular basis–and that’s plenty enough for a Wednesday night, right? That’s why we like to call them “second fries” or “surprise fries”: maybe they’re not quite the same, but they are a nice bonus to/on an otherwise fry-less–and, perhaps, vegetable-less–night.
Ingredients
Instructions
Prep, Cook, and Assemble
- Peel zucchini, then cut in half horizontally. Cut each half in half vertically, then slice each quarter into 5-6 strips of roughly equal width. (Note: if you’ve got a french fry slicer, use it!)
- Get out three shallow and flat containers. Cover the base of the first in flour, then add the cornstarch and a pinch of salt; sift to mix. Crack the egg into the second and add a pinch of water; mix until blended. To the third, add the panko breadcrumbs and two shakes of garlic powder; crush the Goldfish in your hand–or smash them down with a flat object or mallet–until fine-grained crumbs, then mix into panko.
- Toss the zucchini strips in the flour mixture, then coat in the egg; allow any excess egg liquid to drip off the zucchini pieces, then roll in panko-Goldfish mixture until coated.
- Coat the surface of your air fryer in cooking spray and/or lay a piece of parchment paper down, then place zucchini strips in the basket, making sure that the pieces do not touch.
- Cook until the coating around zucchini is golden brown, roughly 7 minutes at 375. (Note: if your air fryer tends to be on the less powerful side, you may need to add another 1-3 minutes of cook time.)
Serve
Hit with a spritz of lemon and side with a creamy sauce (i.e., ranch, yum-yum). Pro tip: don’t feel like you have to hide the fact that there are veggies underneath the coating; rather, if you need to sell ‘em instead focus on the crunch and the, well, dip-piness of them.
Adapt
About the only vegetable that you can do a 1:1 substitution here is eggplant, and we recommend doing those at 350 for 10 minutes. If you want to employ carrots here, try our carrot fries recipe.
