Make Perfectly Grilled Zucchini all summer long! Quick and easy, great as a side dish with anything you’re grilling.
Pair this perfectly grilled zucchini with shrimp and pineapple skewers for a fresh, flavorful summer meal!
Grilled Zucchini
Zucchini is one of my favorite vegetables, I make it year round and have a ton of zucchini recipes. During the summer months, I love grilling zucchini as a side dish to serve with chicken, fish or meat. It’s fast, easy and delicious! A few zucchini dishes I also love all summer, Angel Hair Pasta with Zucchini and Tomatoes, Zucchini Feta Fritters and this Crustless Zucchini Pie.
This will also work with yellow squash if you prefer or do a mix of both. It’s an easy side dish that the whole family will love, and it’s dairy-free, low-carb, keto and Whole30 friendly. You can play around with the flavor profile with different oils, vinegars and spices.
Steps for success
- You want to slice your zucchini into uniform strips so they grill evenly. You can do this with a knife, but you have more control with a mandolin. This is the one I use, it’s best to get a cut resistant glove (affil link) so you don’t lose a finger.
- To make perfect zucchini on a grill, start by seasoning your zucchini with oil, vinegar, herbs and spices.
- Heat the grill and make sure the grates are clean and well oiled.
- Grill until tender and grill marks appear.
- If you don’t have a grill, a grill pan with ridges like this one is great.
Zucchini Seasoning Ingredients
- extra-virgin olive oil
- red wine vinegar or balsamic
- dried herbs such as parsley and basil
- garlic powder, salt and pepper
More Zucchini Recipes
- Santa Fe Stuffed Zucchini Boats
- Veggie Lasagna Stuffed Zucchini
- Chicken Enchilada Stuffed Zucchini
- Turkey Stuffed Zucchini
- Colombian Zucchini Rellenos
Perfect Grilled Zucchini
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2 medium zucchini, about 8 oz each, sliced 1/4 inch thick
- 1 tbsp olive oil, extra virgin
- 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
- 1 tsp dried parsley
- 1 tsp dried basil
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- Kosher salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
- Preheat grill on medium-high. In a large bowl, toss zucchini with oil, red wine vinegar, parsley, basil, and garlic powder. Season with 1/4 teaspoon salt and black pepper, to taste.
- Once grill is hot, carefully use tongs to rub an oiled paper towel over grates to clean.
- Using tongs, place zucchini on grill. Cover and cook, 2 to 3 minutes. Flip and continue cooking on high, covered, 2 to 3 minutes more
- When zucchini is tender, remove from heat, taste for salt and adjust as needed and eat right away.
Last Step:
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Nutrition
Photo Credit: Jess Larson
This is a great way to prep zucchini! Great simple recipe!
We loved this. I made on an indoor black iron skillet grille but I cant wait to try it outside. The vinegar gave a nice tang and my daughter requested a little everything season on top.
I didn’t put these on the grill, but they turned out well sautéing in a skillet. Next time I’ll grill to get a Smoked flavor. The vinegar added to the savory flavor. Good option.
First time grilling zucchini..so easy and delicious. Definitely a recipe to be made again.
Great recipe. Never considered this marinade combination. It’s a winner. Thanks for including the weight of the zucchini’s.
Description has a typo, “This will also with with yellow squash if you prefer or do a mix of both.”
Glad you enjoyed it! Fixed, thank you!
This is the most delicious way to cook zucchini! My husband, who is not a zucchini lover likes eating it this way. Get the grill very hot and cook several minutes until grill marks form, then turn and repeat! Delicious.
This recipe contains zero instruction as to height/heat/duration of grill fire, whether to grill with the grill covered or uncovered. I opted for a medium fire and tossed the slices across the grill, then covered my Weber with about an inch of a gap on the top to let the fire be hot but not too hot, for about 7 minutes each side of the slices. No success, they came out soggy.
Very high heat for a few minutes on each side allows it to brown without the sogginess. I let grill marks be my guide.
Great method! But please don’t try to oil a hot grill — apply the oil in a thin coating to the grate before starting the grill. Just rub the grate with an oily paper towel. It will smoke as the grill heats.
Best zucchini I’ve made!
Yum. Tender and tasty
Absolutely 💯 love. We ate all ofthem
What a great way to prepare zucchini! My Zucchini was fat at one end and got much thinner at the top end so I sliced it in disks about half inch thick. Very little waste and ìt all got done at the same time after 2 or 3 minutes per side. I didn’t have any dried parsley but I added a dash of thyme and used finely chopped fresh basil then added some grated parmesan. Mouth watering good. Thanks for a great recipe with the elbow room to customize to my taste buds.
Easy to make and tasted great!
Excellent.
This was so easy and quick to make, and even the non-veggie lovers in my family were happy to eat it! Thank you for the recipe.
Awesome taste and simply👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
I love this easy, flavorful way to grill zucchini. Sometimes I vary the seasoning depending on what I have at home. I prefer to cook each side a little longer. This is in our regular rotation in the summer
Simple and delicious! It was a big hit with my friends.
We have never tried grilled zucchini before. Thanks to these instructions it will become a regular in our summer rotation!
We like the flavor addition from the red wine vinegar. Great zucchini grilling recipe that everyone enjoyed. I added two tbs of olive oil because I didn’t see a good coating on oil on the zucchini with just one tbs. We like the seasons recommended and also used Italian season as an option that’s a good seasoning substitution.
simple and delicious
A you make it in a pan
Very good recipe
Prepped this today for my husband to throw on the grill and we were really impressed with the flavor. I just left the slices a little thicker. The red wine vinegar makes all the difference! Will be doing this again.
With zucchini season upon us, I was looking for a new recipe. My husband likes to make grilled zucchini skins but I find them to be so bland. The vinegar just makes these have such great flavor. I just used plain old wine vinegar. These are so good I’ve made them 2x this week. Look forward to preparing these throughout the summer.
Excellent way to grill zucchini. The thin slices really make a difference!
This was awesome! I made this last week to go along with grilled chicken breast. It was a nice side and I will be making it again tonight. Thank you for a great new way to have zucchini.
This was fantastic. I’ve made it twice and both times it was terrific. Using my mandolin to slice the zucchini made grilling easier and more consistent. The second time I swapped out the red wine vinegar for rice wine vinegar which allowed the subtle spices to come through more adding another dimension to this side dish.
Can you marinate the sliced zucchini in this mixture for a couple of hours or will that make them soggy?
Can you leave this marinating overnight?
It would have helped if you’d have provided a grill temperature.
It helps not to be rude.
I did not find his comment rude, just to the point and suggested it could have been better if it provided a temperature for the grill. I would say a high grill temp ranges from 450+ F
So good! Thank you for creating and sharing this. My whole family ate it right up. Ashamedly I am a picky eater myself, and even though I serve healthy food and am a decent cook, I usually gag my zucchini and yellow squash down or try to hide it in spaghetti sauce or breads- but this I would eat every day!
Love this zucchini. Cooked it in a grill pan on the stove cause of the heat outside but can’t wait to see how it taste on an actual grill. The 1 down is that when I entered the nutrition in the WW app it came out as 2 but not a big deal!
Glad you enjoyed it! The only accurate way to determine any recipe’s SmartPoints® value is to plug the ingredients into the recipe builder on the Weight Watchers website (Click on “My Foods,” select “Recipe,” and click “Create a recipe.”) which does not count fruits and vegetables in recipes in the calculations as they are now 0 points.
The SmartPoints® calculator isn’t meant for recipes and will often give you the wrong points (usually higher) because it’s counting the fruits and vegetables. So if you see a recipe with a SmartPoints® value that’s different from what the calculator tells you, now you know why.
This tasted wonderful! Thanks so much.
Can I use rice wine vinegar?
under no circumstances
Someone commented earlier they used rice vinegar and it helped some of the spices shine a bit more, so go for it! I would say whatever vinegar is your vinegar of choice is a good substitute (and what you have on hand!).
I love grilled zucchini, but I’ve never used my mandolin to cut them for the grill. That’s the best idea ever! They were perfectly sliced and they thick enough to not fall through my grill grates. Thanks!
So good. I used zucchini and summer squash, and I think this was the tastiest squash I’ve ever had. I couldn’t remember which vinegar it called for, so I used white wine vinegar with a splash of balsamic. Did I mention how good this was? Simple and flavorful. Yum. Thank you for posting this!
The zucchini turned out great and we loved the flavor. Thanks for sharing!
Made this for a side with our dinner the other night and it was delicious!! Used the exact same marinade for grilled chicken breast tonight and it was amazing!! Thank you so much for all your delicious recipes!!
Made it tonight with white wine vinegar and Italian seasoning, since that was what I had on hand. Delicious!
Made this tonight and it was wonderful! We used balsamic…
Delicious
Hey love your recipes, always went at least twice a weeK for ideas. But how can one find more than one option at a time like both gluten and dairy free or like both low carb and dairy free??? this would helps lots 🙂 thank you for all your hard work!
Thanks Gina, this looks delicious, how long would they keep for?
I like to eat them right away.
Japanese eggplant would work for this recipe too
Mine came out very soggy/moist. Do you have any tips to avoid?
Yes, you may have cooked it too long.
Wouldn’t it be better to dust the zucchini with the seasonings after or just before you take them off the grille so they don’t burn? Just asking. Thanks.
If you wish
How thick are you slicing them? If it’s in the recipe I scant see it.
1/4 inch thick
Any tips for cooking it on a (nonstick) stovetop grill pan?
Ingredient list is for red wine vinegar. Instructions say balsamic. I assume they are interchangeable, but is one better than the other! We love grilled zucchini, but have never used any vinegar in the prep. Thanks!
Red wine vinegar.
Hi, this looks great but I’m a little confused. Your ingredients call for red wine vinegars but in directions you state balsamic. Don’t know if it matters and if it would change the flavor.
Thank You.
Sorry, was a typo. Red wine vinegar.
Thank you Gina. Marinating them now. They look delicious. Thank you for sharing your great recipes.
About how thick do you slice the zucchini?
Balsamic or red wine vinegar?
Red wine vinegar.
I love grilled zucchini! My favorite way to eat it.
There is an error in the recipe .In the ingredients you listed red wine vinegar and in the instructions you said balsamic vinegar.. So which one is it?
Red wine.