This layered summer zucchini baked casserole with orzo pasta and cheddar cheese is a savory and delicious easy-to-make summer side dish. It's perfect for using up any extra zucchini you have from your garden, and it's a great crowd-pleaser for the whole family. The layers of pasta, zucchini, creamy sauce, and cheddar cheese make for a flavorful and satisfying dish. And to top it off, there's a crunchy butter cracker topping that adds just the right amount of texture to this tender zucchini and pasta baked casserole.
After recently coming to the grand and somewhat surprising realization that within the almost ten years that I've been posting recipes here, I have only shared three puny yet delicious zucchini recipes, I have decided to make it my summer mission to embrace anything and everything involving zucchini. And yes, admittedly, zucchini is not a vegetable of which I am overly fond, thus the reason, most likely, why it has not been featured a lot in the past. It's kind of blah, it's kind of mushy, and as far as I'm concerned, it kind of only tastes great when fried. Except maybe for when it's used in desserts, and surprisingly, also in this casserole. I honestly had my heart set on not really enjoying this baked casserole. Remember, blah? Remember, mushy? But low and behold, it seems that blah and mushy go away when you add cheddar and a buttery cracker topping. Score one unexpected point for zucchini. Now, let's pray that all of my other zucchini endeavors in the near future fare just as well.
Ingredients:
Orzo:
- Cold Water
- 1 Teaspoon Coarse Sea Salt
- 1 Cup Orzo Pasta
Zucchini:
- 1 Pound Zucchini, Thinly Sliced
- Grated Sea Salt
Sauce:
- 1 Tablespoon Unsalted Butter
- 2 Teaspoons Dried Minced Onion
- 1 Cup Half and Half
- 1/2 Cup Sour Cream
- 1 Teaspoon Dried Thyme
- 1/4 Teaspoon Finely Ground Black Pepper
- 1/4 Teaspoon Crushed Red Pepper Flakes
- 1/4 Teaspoon Dry Mustard
- Pinch of Grated Sea Salt
- Pinch of Freshly Grated Nutmeg
Assembly:
- Unsalted Butter
- 4-oz. Sharp Cheddar Cheese, Grated
Topping:
- 10 Buttery Crackers, Finely Crushed
- 1 Tablespoon Unsalted Butter, Melted
Directions:
Orzo:
- Fill a saucepot with cold water and add coarse sea salt; boil over high heat.
- Add the pasta, stir, and then cook for 8 minutes.
- Drain and rinse the pasta for 1 minute under cold water; set aside.
Zucchini:
- Arrange the sliced zucchini in a single layer over several layers of paper towels. Grate sea salt over the sliced zucchini and allow to rest for 15 minutes.
- Before assembly, use a few paper towels to remove any leftover salt or liquid from the zucchini.
Sauce:
- Place the butter and minced onion in a sauté pan or skillet over low heat.
- While the butter is melting, whisk together the half and half, sour cream, thyme, black pepper, crushed red pepper flakes, dry mustard, salt, and nutmeg in a small bowl.
- Add the mixture to the sauté pan or skillet when the butter has melted.
- Stirring constantly, cook for 3 to 5 minutes, or until heated through.
- Remove from heat.
Assembly:
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
- Lightly grease a rectangular baking dish with butter.
- Spread half of the orzo pasta out in the bottom of the buttered baking dish.
- Layer half of the zucchini over the orzo pasta.
- Drizzle half of the sauce over the zucchini and use a silicone spatula to gently spread it out evenly.
- Sprinkle with half of the shredded cheddar.
- Layer the remaining ingredients in the same order as above.
- Bake for 20 minutes.
Topping:
- After the casserole has baked for 20 minutes, remove it from the oven.
- Mix the crushed crackers and melted butter together in a small bowl.
- Sprinkle the buttered crackers out evenly over the top of the casserole.
- Bake the casserole for an additional 10 minutes.
Suggestions:
- It may look like this recipe has a lot of steps and is a bit fussy. It's really not that bad. While you're waiting for the pasta water to boil, you can slice and salt the zucchini. While the pasta is cooking and the zucchini is resting, you can make the sauce. Everything will be ready to assemble around the same time. This casserole actually comes together pretty quickly.
- Two to three small to medium zucchini should yield enough sliced zucchini for this recipe.
- I used dried minced onion in this recipe because I did not have a fresh onion on hand. If you have an onion, peel, chop, and sauté it for a few minutes with the butter before adding the sauce to the sauté pan.
- This casserole is not insanely large. It will easily yield 6 servings but it won't leave you stuck eating the same casserole day after day.
- You can easily substitute yellow squash for this recipe, or a mixture of yellow squash and zucchini.
Improvements:
- For the topping, replace the buttered cracker mixture with store-bought crispy fried onions.
- Replace the dried thyme with a few teaspoons of basil pesto.
- Layer finely chopped oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes in the casserole between the orzo pasta and the zucchini.
- In addition to the cheddar cheese, sprinkle some freshly grated parmesan cheese over the casserole.
- Serve this zucchini casserole with these Grilled Lemon Pepper Marinated Chicken Tenders or these Simple Oven-Baked Sheet Pan Pork Tenderloins.
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MORE GREAT ZUCCHINI RECIPES
Chocolate Pudding Zucchini Bread
Lemon Poppy Seed Zucchini Bread Muffins
Chocolate Zucchini Bread Pumpkin Seed Cake
Please make sure to check out the other great Foodie Extravaganza zucchini recipes below. A huge thanks to A Day in the Life on the Farm for hosting this "National Zucchini Day" event.
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