These zucchini and mascarpone fritters are a fun comfort food recipe that is perfect for lunch or a light dinner in the summer months. Made using a few ingredient swaps from typical zucchini fritter recipes, they are a vegetarian and low histamine recipe.
If you love zucchini, do check out my zucchini leek potato soup for another fun lunch idea!
I always find that fritters go down well with everyone, kids and adults alike! If you love fritters too then you may like to see my dairy free apple fritters for a sweet treat, or my sweet potato fritters and potato fritters for another savoury idea. Both delicious!
Looking for another hearty mascarpone dinner? Do have a peek at my chicken mascarpone pasta for next time!
Jump to:
⭐ Why these fritters are so good
- Best texture: crispy on the outside, gooey in the middle - what's not to love?!
- Uses fresh cheese: mascarpone cheese is used in place of mature cheddar or parmesan, so helpful for those who aren't able to tolerate aged cheese.
- Easy to make: a simple recipe that mostly involves combining the ingredients and then pan frying the fritters.
🥘 Ingredients
- Zucchini / courgette: the main ingredient and a real summer vegetable to make use of in the hotter months. I usually grow my own and they produce huge amounts! Grate and then remove the liquid for the perfect fritter.
- Mascarpone cheese: used in place of mature cheese such as Cheddar or Parmesan. With a softer and more subtle taste, it lets the flavour of the herbs shine through.
- Egg yolks: to help bind the fritter together.
- Spelt flour: used in place of regular flour, I like the slightly nutty taste it gives to the fritters. I use the Dove's Farm organic whole grain spelt flour.
- Garlic: for lots of flavour. You can leave this out of course, but it gives a lot of taste. Make sure to mince or finely dice.
- Mint: a real summer herb, and my plant in the garden is growing so quickly I can barely keep up. Store-bought is of course great too.
- Chives: a subtle flavour, but always lovely.
📖 Variations on the herbs
The herbs in the fritters can easily be swapped out for those you prefer.
Chives score 1 on the SIGHI list, so if my low histamine readers need to stick to ingredients that score 0 then consider thyme, basil or parsley instead.
🔪 Step by step instructions
Making these zucchini cheese fritters is very simple, and you could rope in the kids to help make the batter - it's that easy! Adult supervision definitely required for the frying aspect though . . .
STEP 1
Grate the zucchini and place in the centre of a clean tea towel. Draw the sides of the tea towel up and then twist, squeeze and generally pummel as much as you can to lose as much of the liquid as possible. Be sure to do this over the sink! Really wring out as much liquid as possible or the fritters will be too wet and won't stick together.
STEP 2
Add the zucchini and all other ingredients to the bowl (other than the oil for frying). Stir very thoroughly so that the egg, mascarpone and flour is evenly distributed as this will help the fritter hold together.
STEP 3
Drizzle oil into a pan. Then take a couple of tablespoon of the fritter 'batter' and form a ball with your hands. Place on the pan and then press down with a spatula so that it forms a fritter shape. Don't worry about a uniform shape, fritters are meant to be slightly rustic looking!
STEP 4
Fry for 4-5 minutes or until the fritter is light golden brown. The time will depend on how thick the fritter is. Carefully flip and fry the other side until cooked through.
💭 Recipe tips and notes
- Don't skip the step of wringing the liquid out of the zucchini. If it is too wet the fritters won't hold together.
- Make sure your fritters aren't too thick, as that will make it more difficult for the middle to cook through.
- You may need to add more oil to the pan as you fry the fritters if you are doing so individually.
- If you are gluten free then please note that spelt flour does contain gluten. I haven't used another flour, but I would think gluten free flour should work fine.
🍽 How to serve zucchini fritters
These zucchini and mascarpone fritters can be served as part of a salad dish, placed on top of salad leaves and perhaps with cucumber, radishes and other vegetables such as grated carrot. Or perhaps pair with some of my salads:
Fritters can also be part of a hot meal, such as with boiled new potatoes, my cauliflower herb rice and vegetables for a vegetarian dinner.
Actually, come to think of it, why not have them for breakfast on a lazy weekend morning? Seems they are good for any meals doesn't it!
📖 Eggs and a low histamine diet
Eggs are somewhat debated on a low histamine diet, with some lists saying they are fine if cooked, others saying not to eat at all.
On the SIGHI list egg yolk scores 0, but egg whites score higher and as a liberator. On a poll I did on my Low Histamine Kitchen Instagram, 64% of people said they ate eggs, with quite a few messaging me to say they could eat egg yolk but not whites.
This recipe uses egg yolk only in line with the SIGHI list. Of course, you should follow the advice of your own doctor or dietician on whether to consume eggs or not.
🍲 More delicious dinner recipes
Looking for more recipe ideas? Lots of tasty dinner recipes to try out here on the blog, including my green spaghetti pasta and my stuffed gem squash. Some recent recipes to enjoy:
I’m always in the kitchen, so come join me on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest to be the first to hear of new recipes. And please do leave a star rating and comment ⭐ if you've tried the recipe!
📖 Recipe
Zucchini and Mascarpone Fritters
Ingredients
- 2 medium zucchini grated
- ¼ cup spelt flour
- 1 garlic clove minced or finely diced
- 2 egg yolks
- 2 tablespoon mascarpone cheese
- 1 tablespoon chives diced
- 2 tablespoon mint diced
- pinch salt
- pinch black pepper optional
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
Instructions
- Place the grated zucchini in a clean tea towel, pull up by the corners and squeeze (over the sink) out as much liquid as possible.
- Add all the ingredients to a bowl, except the olive oil. Stir very thoroughly until you have a fairly wet batter. If it seems too wet then add a touch more flour.
- Drizzle the oil into a pan, and then on a medium heat spoon a couple of tablespoon of your fritter 'batter' into your hands. Roll into a ball, then place in the pan. Press down on the fritter with a spatula to form the fritter shape.
- Cooking time will vary depending on how thick the fritter is. Fry for 3-5 minutes until golden brown. Carefully flip with a spatula to cook the other side. You may need to add a little more oil to the pan if it gets too dry as you cook the fritters.
Notes
- Ensure that you squeeze as much liquid out of the zucchini as you can so that the batter isn't too wet.
- You may need to add more oil to the pan as you fry the fritters if you are doing so individually.
- If you are gluten free then please note that spelt flour does contain gluten. I haven't used another flour, but I would think gluten free flour should work fine.
- Please note that nutritional information is offered as a courtesy. It is auto-generated and should be understood to be an estimate.
- garlic and chives, which score 1.
- black pepper, which scores 2.
- spelt scores 0 but has a ? as a liberator and the note: 'Prefer old varieties. Modern ATI-varieties modified by cultivation are often not well tolerated'.
Amy says
These are DELICIOUS! I substituted ricotta because that was all I had. And substituted scallions for chives. I only wish I had more zucchini in the house right now! I’m am literally only 2 days in to low histamine so I’m not exactly sure how compliant my substitutions are. I think I might want to eat these every day!
Claire says
So glad you enjoyed them! Ricotta scores 0 on SIGHI so hopefully that would be fine, and I'm glad to hear that it worked as a good swap for the mascarpone. I'll have to try it myself.
Danielle says
These are amazing. Used rice flour to keep them gf. Omitted cheese as also low fodmap but luckily I'm ok with whole egg so the texture was still spot on. Will likely eat these every day 🙂
Claire says
So glad you enjoyed them Danielle! And thanks for giving the swaps for gluten free, that will help other readers 🙂
Lynne E McNaughton says
Spelt flour doesn't work for the low histamine person in my household, but rice flour was great
Claire says
Glad to hear the rice flour worked well for the fritters and glad you enjoyed them!
Lynne E McNaughton says
excellent for low histamine diet. Thanks!
Jana says
Hello, it's wonderful how many new recipes you have added recently! I want to ask about this one, are the fritters supposed to be soft inside after frying? Mine were nicely brown but so soft, even undercooked inside which wasn't nice especially with the flour. Thanks very much for any advice!
throughthefibrofog says
Hi Jana, so glad you like the new recipes!
With the fritters, perhaps you need to cook them on a lower heat for longer? Or perhaps they need to be a bit thinner? If they are too thick they won't cook in the middle. And yes, these are more on the soft-side - gooey rather than hard. But they should hold together. Hope that helps!
Katie Clark says
These look I'my. I love zucchini. I think I'll try using DF cream cheese.
Sheryl Chan says
These look perfectly crisp with the right amount of flavour and texture. I need to try making some of these... you make everything look so easy! 😉