Grilled Zucchini Salad with Red Onion, Lemon, Mint, and Dill
Souvlaki is a go-to dinner of mine and I commonly fry up kolokithokeftedes, aka zucchini fritters, as the side of choice. I've been on a bit of frying kick lately, but when my vent hood started to consistently "leak" drips of captured oil, I started to think I need to back off that habit. So when I recently decided I wanted souvlaki for dinner, I opted to look to the grill instead of the frying pan, but kept along a similar ingredient path, to get to this grilled zucchini salad with red onion, lemon, mint, and dill recipe.
If you look back at my past summer squash recipes, I generally like to slice my zucchini thin because I have a preference for a final soft texture throughout. This is something my wife and I are not in agreement on and she often complains I "kill" vegetables. So this time around I decided to go with thicker one-inch slices of zucchini so I could get good browning while the innards remained crisp-tender. For the seasoning I used extra-virgin olive oil, salt, black pepper, and a little crushed red pepper—that last ingredient is optional, but I personally like a little heat in a lot of my dishes.
I almost always cut my zucchini on a bias to get more surface area which helps prevent them from falling through the grates. One advantage I didn't think of originally with these larger slices is it was now impossible for me to lose any to the fire because even after being cooked, they were still too wide and tall to be able to slip through.
The ingredients of this salad were really born out of leftovers I had from the other components of the meal. One of those items was half a red onion, with the first half going into the souvlaki marinade. So I sliced that onion into half-inch tall rings, skewered them to keep them held together, and grilled it alongside the zucchini until it was similarly browned and crisp-tender.
Once done at the grill, I sliced the zucchini in half to make it a more manageable size for eating, and chopped up the red onion. Both of those when into a bowl along with lemon, mint, dill, and feta—lemon, mint, and dill were also things I already used for other parts of the meal and had excess of. A simple toss and quick taste finished up the salad before I plated it up with the souvlaki, warm pita, and tzatziki.
Being so used to the zucchini fritters, this salad didn't wander that far off base from the flavors I would normally have, but definitely was lighter and I'm sure a bit healthier too. Zucchini is one of my favorite veggies to cook over the fire because its light flavor lets the taste of the grill come through, and it certainly did here. That was amped up a bit by the onion, which more importantly added sweetness to contrast against the tangy lemon and salty feta. The mint and dill duo tilted the salad in a definite Greek direction that made it feel right at home with the souvlaki. I can very much see myself making this salad again, but there's a better chance that once I clean that drippy hood vent filter, I'll be back to frying fritters because I know myself all too well.
