Salad with Grilled Zucchini and Blackberry Balsamic Dressing Recipe

If you’ve spent any time at all near a summer squash plant, you know how it goes. One minute you see a tiny little zucchini growing; a day later you have a squash as big as your arm.

Those huge zucchinis always went into bread at our house so I made some zucchini muffins last week. Unfortunately, that only used up ½ of the monster.  Instead of more baked goods, I decided to take the rest to the grill for zucchini steaks.

With summer zucchini always comes blackberries so a blackberry dressing sounded perfect. This dressing drizzled on a salad with a couple zucchini steaks and few extras made a great summer meal.

Salad with Grilled Zucchini and Blackberry Balsamic Dressing

Makes:  4 servings

What you’ll need:

Zucchini Steaks
8 – 1 ½ inch thick slices zucchini
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste

Blackberry Balsamic Dressing
½ cup blackberries, defrosted if frozen
5 fresh rosemary leaves
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoons sugar
¼ teaspoons salt
1/8 teaspoons black pepper

Salad
8 cups greens (I used romaine, cabbage and spinach)
4 oz. blue cheese, crumbled
4 tablespoons sunflower seeds

How to make it:

Place the zucchini slices in a shallow dish and drizzle with the olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Coat each piece and set aside to marinade while you prepare the dressing and salad.
In a small food processor, combine all of the dressing ingredients and pulse until it is smooth. If using fresh berries you may need to add 1-2 tablespoons of water. Makes about ½ cup of dressing. Set aside.
Prepare four plates with 2 cups of greens, 1 ounce of blue cheese and 1 tablespoon of sunflower seeds. Set aside.

Preheat the grill or a grill pan on the stove. Place the zucchini slices on the grill and cook on medium-high for 3 to 4 minutes on each side.

Place two zucchini steaks on each salad and drizzle with dressing.

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