Italian Zucchini Crescent Pie

Even if you don’t have a garden overflowing with zucchini right now, chances are, you’ve got more than a few on your counter or in your fridge’s crisper. Low prices at the grocery store, farm stand, and farmers’ market have many of us loading up on summer’s twin garden terrors — zucchini and summer squash — and then scratching our heads trying to figure out how we’re going to use them all up.

I love zucchini baked into bread, right from the grill, stuffed and baked in the oven, or as part of a colorful summer stir-fry, but because of its versatility, you can always find a recipe making new use of this tasty summer veggie. This recipe for Italian Zucchini Crescent Pie caught my eye with its abundance of fresh, sliced zucchini, assortment of herbs, and (let’s face it) the convenience of using refrigerated crescent roll dough for the crust instead of getting out my pastry blender and trying to keep the butter in my pie dough chilled on a hot summer day. Once your zucchini, onion, and cheese mixture is ready, assembling this Italian Zucchini Crescent Pie is a breeze. The crescent roll dough is pressed into the pie plate, a little dijon mustard is spread on the crust for flavor, and the cooked veggies, herbs, and cheese are poured in.

My one complaint with this recipe (which I have since updated online so you shouldn’t have the same problem) is that it did not call for the zucchini to be drained. Like eggplant, zucchini holds a lot of liquid, so when using them in bread or a pie it’s essential to give them time to “sweat out” their excess water. For this recipe, after you’ve sliced them up, add a few shakes of salt and place the zucchini in a colander over the sink for an hour. You’ll end up with a much better (drier) texture in your pie. You can see below how much pooling liquid I had on the surface. It still tasted great, but it took more than a few paper towels worth of blotting.

Despite the excess liquid, the crescent crust held up beautifully, and the pie was packed with zucchini flavor, enhanced by a generous amount of fresh parsley and basil from the herb garden. The amount of cheese was just right, and the eggs baked into the dish as a seamless binder. This zucchini pie is almost like a quiche or deep-dish white pizza, but not quite. I just called it “really, really easy and delicious way to use up zucchini,” and it makes great leftovers, too! This post was first published in 2013 and has been updated. 

GET THE RECIPE: Italian Zucchini Crescent Pie