Fried Ricotta-Stuffed Squash Blossoms!

Squash blossoms are one of my favorite summer ingredients. While you can eat them raw in salad, sauté them up in a frittata or dot them atop a flatbread or pizza, I like them fried!

Their delicate and fragile flowers are the perfect vehicle for silky ricotta cheese, battered, fried and sprinkled with salt. The crispy golden brown petals are crunchy while the warm cheese is creamy and rich. The flavors and the textures are lovely and make this perfect summer appetizer.

These squash blossoms are so beautiful and colorful too! I love edible flowers and am always tempting to buy them for flowers or as garnishes on fruity tropical drinks whenever I see them!

Now I gotta say… this is my second post on Squash Blossoms and I’ve wiped out any existence of the first. Two summers ago, I got it in my head to cook with these blossoms for the first time and searched far and wide for them. They eluded me for weeks until I finally found them in Eataly!

To this day, whenever I see them, my heart races; my mouth waters and I immediately want to cook with them. They only seem to appear when I least expect. When I’ve forgotten about their beauty and taste and just when I’m in need of a challenge or a little foodie inspiration!

And I’ll be honest, my first time cooking them / my first posting (on a newly started blog in a new city) is less than perfect. And so just as I’ve evolved, living in Brooklyn for about a year and a half now and finding myself as a 24-year old and as a cook/foodie, so has my blog… this little passion of mine. So justly so, here is my updated fried squash blossoms post!

Fried Squash Blossoms

Adapted from Epicurious

For the filling:

1 cup whole-milk ricotta

1 large egg yolk

1/3 cup Parmesan cheese

salt and pepper

Stir together ricotta, yolk, 1/3 cup Parmesan, and a dash of salt and pepper.

Gently fill each blossom with about 2 tbsp of the filling, with either a spoon or pastry bag / Ziploc bag. Twist the flowers gently to enclose the filling.

For the batter:

½ cup and 1 tbsp all-purpose flour

¾ cup chilled seltzer

salt and pepper

Whisk together flour and seltzer and add salt and pepper.

Add a little mint to the filling or chopped parsley to the batter for extra flavor! 

Gently dip the filled blossoms into the batter and transfer to a large pot of hot oil. Fry for about 2 minutes, turning once. Transfer to a plate lined with paper towels. Sprinkle with salt.

Eat as is or serve with marina sauce or even a homemade aioli.

With a whole month of summer left (wohoo!), and heat and humidty sticking around (no!), this appetizer is perfect with a little refreshment of the alcoholic variety. While a sparkling Italian wine would go perfectly with this, I went with Txakoli, a Spanish sparkling wine traditional in Basque Country. My parents, recently back from a short sojourn in the North of Spain, raved about txakoli and pinxtos… which got me all inspired! I’ll definitely be sharing some Pixnto recipes soon!

And there you have it, a fresh, crispy Italian summer appetizer perfect with some bubbly.