Healthy and Yummy Zucchini Zircles with Sweet Apricot Dipping Sauce

There’s this one hole in the wall store that I ate at back when I was in college that served Zucchini circles on the burger sides instead of your usual fries. At first, I was put off with the idea since in my book it was blasphemy not to serve fries with your burger. However, it was love at first bite!

The Zucchini circles were delicious. It was so delicious that it made me think for a moment that I can go vegetarian and live on it alone. But then I remembered - bacon, so there was that!

But despite it, the zucchini circles randomly pops into my head even in god-awful hours of the night. So, I decided to give it a shot and look for a recipe that would help me get them out of my mind.

The thing with zucchini is that unlike fries, it doesn’t make you feel guilty even if you consume an entire basket of them. You won’t constantly watch out if all those calories it pops right out of your hips. But what I like about my zucchini zircles (see what I did there?) that I made is that I didn’t use a mandoline to slice it up. Instead, I prefer to use a really sharp knife so that I can control the thickness that I want for my zircles. Luckily, I use a good knife sharpener to help me keep my knives on point. There’s the Priority Chef Diamond Knife Sharpener. It’s so easy to use and gives me equally sharp knives every time!

Here’s how to make Zucchini Zircles!

Ingredients:

Fried Zucchini:

• 2 whole zucchini
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 cup seasoned breadcrumbs
• 1-quart vegetable oil
• salt to taste

Dipping Sauce:

• 1/2 cup pineapple juice
• 1 1/2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp dry mustard powder
• 1 1/2 cup apricot preserves

Instructions:

First, you need to make your apricot dipping sauce. Put the pineapple juice, soy sauce and dry mustard into the blender and white it around until everything is completely combined. And then put in a medium bowl, add in your apricot preserve and mix everything up. Once it’s thoroughly mixed, place in the fridge to allow the flavor to deepen and develop.

Now comes the zucchini. Cut the first zucchini into poker chip slices but with two times the thickness of a silver dollar. And grab the second zucchini and slice them a bit on the diagonal side. Well, it’s just me but I like to have dimensions in my zircles. Set these aside.

And now for the breading. Get three shallow dishes and in the first one, add some milk. In the second one, add the flour and in the last bowl, add the season breadcrumbs. I chose the seasoned one since it gives an easy peasy way to add a great deal of flavor to the zircles.

Once by one drop a zucchini circle into the flour and coat both sides and then drop into the milk and turn it several times and then drop into the bread crumbs. Once it’s fully coated lay it on a wire rack that's placed over a sheet pan. Repeat these until you breaded all these critters. It’s that easy!

Now, it’s time to fry them up. Heat the vegetable oil in a skillet over medium heat and do a crumb test to find out if it’s hot enough. Carefully drop the zircles into the skillet and make sure you have enough oil to just barely submerge them. It’s best to fry them 3 to 4 zircles at a time so that you can maintain the temperature in the oil. Once they’re deep golden brown, which would take about 60 to 90 seconds, remove them and set them on a paper towel to absorb the excess oil. Sprinkle with a good amount of salt and serve them warm with a dish of the sweet apricot sauce!

They are absolutely the perfect when you’re having the munchies and you want something that’s healthier than fries or potato chips!