Oven Baked Zucchini Pie with Cheese in 15 Minutes

A simple vegetable pie made of zucchini, carrots and onions with the addition of cheese. Very flavorful and tender, it is a great main dish and a side dish to meat, poultry or fish dishes. It’s very fast and you don’t even have to cut anything: grate the vegetables, knead the dough, add spices, combine everything in a form and send it to the oven. 15 minutes and you can do other things while the pie is baking or cook something else in the meantime.

Ingredients

🍽 6 servings:

• 3 zucchini (medium size, approximately 600-700 g total weight)
• 1 onion
• 1 carrot
• 3 garlic cloves
• 50 g (1,7 oz) Parmesan cheese (you can substitute 100 g of any soft or hard cheese)
• 150 g (5,3 oz) of mozzarella cheese (with or without brine – does not matter, you can also use suluguni cheese)
• 200g (7,1 oz) all-purpose wheat flour
• 4 eggs
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp. thyme
• 1 tsp. oregano
• salt, black pepper
• 10 g (0,4 oz) of unsalted butter for greasing the baking tray
• 100-150g (3,4-5,3 oz) cream cheese for serving (optional)

Step by step directions

First, preheat the oven to 180 °C / 350 °F, top + bottom + fan (convection).

Prepare the batter. Sift 200 g (7,1 oz) of flour and add 1 tsp. of baking powder (with a handful), mix with a whisk or fork. Beat 4 eggs, salt with a pinch of salt and mix the batter.

Set the batter aside. Wash the vegetables, peel carrots, onions and garlic. Zucchini can also be peeled if desired, especially if they have had time to spoil, but it is not necessary.

In a large mixing bowl, grate zucchini, onion and carrot on a coarse grater. Grate the garlic on a fine grater.

It would be easier to grate the onions without cutting them in half, I was a little hasty and cut them without thinking.

Add 1/2 tsp. thyme, 1/2 tsp. oregano (leave the remaining 1/2 tsp. to sprinkle on top of the pie after baking). Grate 1/2 of the nutmeg and 50 g (1,7 oz) of parmesan cheese (or 100 g if using a less flavorful cheese).

Salt and mix until smooth, taste, add more salt if necessary. Pour in the batter. Stir again to make sure the batter is evenly distributed throughout the vegetable mixture.

Grease a mold (I use a glass mold, size 30×22 cm) with butter. Pour the mixture and flatten with a spatula.

Tear up the mozzarella with your hands and spread it on top of the pie

Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes. Until the crust turns brown on top. Check the readiness of the pie with a toothpick or a wooden skewer, if it comes out dry – the pie is ready, if it shows wet dough – cook another 5 minutes and check again. If the crust is already browned, you can cover the pie with foil so that it won’t burn on top.

Remove from the oven and sprinkle with the remaining oregano. Cool, cut into portions and serve. Combined with the cream cheese, the pie is especially good.