Squash Blossoms Stuffed with Goat Cheese
I’m not going to call this a quick weeknight meal, but it is a dish worth preparing when you want to make something really special with your squash blossoms!
In my garden, squash blossoms start to really get prolific around June and July. I have found that the blossoms produced by winter squash varieties tend to be larger—-one of my best flower producers is the vigorous tromboncino squash. Below I’m sharing all my tips for when and how to harvest squash blossoms to use for cooking.
Tips for Harvesting Squash Blossoms
I listed my top tips for picking squash blossoms in the Instagram post below. Always be wary of bees or bugs that might be inside.
Prep your blossoms
Start by removing the sepals (these are those green, tiny pointed-looking things at the base of the flower around the outside).
Next, you’ll need to remove the stamen/stigma from the inside. I found it easier to do this by taking scissors and inserting them into the flower to snip the stamen away. Everytime I tried with my fingers, I tore the petals.
Gently rinse out the flower and lay to dry on a paper towel.
Here I am removing the inner stigma with scissors.
Let the squash blossoms dry on paper towels and leave a little stem on for easier handling!
Ingredients
*This recipe makes enough to fill approximately 12 blossoms.
For the filling:
4oz. of goat cheese, room temperature!
1/2 TBS honey
pepper to taste
For the frying batter:
3/4 C beer *a light lager
1/2 C flour
1/8 tsp kosher salt
Here I’m using a pastry bag to carefully fill each squash blossom with the goat cheese filling.
Method
Mix all the filling ingredients together. Your filling should be creamy in consistency.
Transfer to a pastry bag (or ziploc with the corner cut off).
Whisk all the frying batter ingredients together in a medium shallow bowl that would be easy for dipping (like a pie pan). The consistency should be like a thin pancake batter,
Squeeze filling into each blossom. Because of variations in blossom sizes, you’ll have to use your judgement for how much to fill. Typically, stop before you reach the point where the petals separate.
Twist the petals together at the top to gently to “seal” the blossom for frying.
Repeat for all your blossoms.
Heat about 1/4 inch of frying oil (like canola) in a heavy saucepan until a deep-frying thermometer reads 350 Degrees F. *IMPORTANT: make sure your oil is hot enough. This ensures a crisp blossom.
Dipping the stuffed and prepped squash blossom into the beer batter.
Gently immerse one blossom at a time into your beer batter. It helps to have a little bit of stem to hold on to for dipping.
Gently add to pan.
Continue to add dipped blossoms to pan, ensuring that you don’t add too many that the oil temperature drops. We fried about 3-4 at a time.
Fry only about 30 seconds and then turn blossoms over using tongs. Fry for another few seconds, or until golden brown.
Using tongs, remove from oil and let drain on a wire rack or plate with a paper towel.
Cool & ENJOY! Do be aware that these can be very hot inside, so definitely let cool enough.
Tips for success
• don’t over fill your blossoms. If the cheese leaks out during cooking, it will burn and create an odd taste.
• make sure your oil is hot enough. This ensures a crisp fry, instead of soggy blooms.
• have everything prepped and ready to go before frying. The blossoms fry very quickly.
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Meet Randi
We made these tonight and I loved them! I didn’t have beer on hand so used ginger ale instead, followed everything else. They had a sweet taste to them, but not like a sugar sweet, very mild and delicious! Great appetizer and fairly easy to make. My husband and 10 year old boy loved them too. Thanks Randi for the yummy recipe ?
That’s so wonderful to hear Lidia! Makes me to happy to hear that your family loved them! Thanks for the tip on the ginger ale substitute too. 😉