Zucchini Flour--Another Reason to Plant More Zucchini?

Discovering the joys of zoodles last year was reason enough to plant more zucchini then.  Earlier this year, actually just last month, my daughters reported back from a party they attended at the home of woman I evidently really need to meet.  I couldn’t do it last week due to a minor cold accompanied by a really nasty cough with a bad habit of manifesting itself when I tried to talk.  Sharing a cold and cough bug may not be the best way to start a new friendship.

Anyway, the girls reported that this woman, in her quest to become more self-reliant, was experimenting with growing her own wheat.  I love, love, love, the concept.  Not sure how it will work out in reality.  I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t work in my reality, living as I do on a mountainside without water rights and irrigation. 

But wheat and flour and bread are staples—the staff of life.  If we can reduce the amount of wheat or white flour we use in baking and replace it with something we can grow at home, that might be a very good thing. 

So circulating on Facebook was a post on using zucchini flour, asserting that it’s a common staple among Amish and Mennonites (apparently true) and that it was also routinely used during the rationing of the WWII era so that more wheat could be sent to support our troops.  I could not find any sources for that, but it is entirely plausible. Would zucchini flour be a wise way to extend the flour supply? 

Let's investigate.

Here are the instructions:

How to Make Zucchini Flour

Wash zucchini.  Oversized zucchini will produce the best flour texture and flavor.  (If you use small zucchini, the finished flour will taste more like zucchini.)  Five pounds of zucchini will yield about 1 cup of flour.  Cut the zucchini in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds and set them aside.  (Dry them and save for planting next year, if you bagged them and hand-pollinated to make sure they’ll breed true, or roast them for eating or using for medicinal purposes.)  Thinly slice or shred the zucchini flesh. 

Drain the shredded/sliced zucchini in a colander for 15-20 minutes and then spread it on the dehydrating trays.  Dry at 135℉ for 8-12 hours, until the zucchini is completely dry.  (If you don’t have a dehydrator, set the oven temperature as low as possible and prop the door open an inch or two.  Place a fan near the door to improve air circulation.  Spread the zucchini on a cookie sheet, place it in the center of the oven, and dehydrate for 3-5 hours.)  If the air is humid, the zucchini will take longer to dry.

Zucchini really shrinks when fully dehydrated and should be very dry and crispy.  The least bit of moisture will ruin the flour upon storage.  Once the zucchini shreds are fully dehydrated, run them through a food processor until they are completely powdered, like regular flour. [I ran them through my low-end Oster food processor for several minutes, and the best I could get was the consistency of cornmeal, rather coarse.]

Store the zucchini flour in an airtight container and use within six months, or vacuum seal for longer storage.  Do not store it in the refrigerator (too much moisture).  

Replace up to 1/3 of the all-purpose flour in most recipes with zucchini flour without affecting the result. 

Zucchini flour lacks gluten, so it cannot be substituted in a 1:1 ratio in most recipes.  For best results replace just ¼-1/3 of the all-purpose flour with zucchini flour.  It may be necessary to add a little extra water or oil because zucchini flour absorbs a little more moisture than wheat flour.

However, zucchini flour is reported to be an excellent substitute for coconut flour and can be substituted in those recipes in a 1:1 ratio without any issues.

Zucchini flour is ideal for thickening soup, sauce, and gravy, as well as breading fish or meat.  (Or perhaps deep-fried zucchini?)

Zucchini flour works very well in flat breads like tortillas and is perfect for making brownies where the chocolate not only hides the green color but also camouflages the zucchini flavor for the pickiest eaters.

Zucchini is a good source of vitamins B6 and C. It also contains potassium, magnesium, and folate, in addition to small amounts of iron, calcium, zinc, and several other B vitamins.[i]

Other squash

Other squash will work for dehydrating and substituting for flour—other summer squash, acorn squash, spaghetti squash, and pumpkins.  Sweet squash will affect the baking due to the higher sugar content.

So that concludes the information replicated everywhere on Facebook.  I summed up the pros and cons below--that's assuming that the results of using zucchini flour are good.

Advantages

• Well, of course, making your own flour and reducing the amount of white flour and wheat you use.
• Linking back to an article on the medicinal uses of pumpkin and other squash, you’ve already let this zucchini get huge.  Save these seeds for medicinal uses.  Double duty.
• If you also bagged the blooms and pollinated them yourself, then you know these seeds will breed true, and you can save them—the ones you don’t eat—for next year’s crop.  Triple duty.  A prepper’s multi-tasking dream.

Disadvantages

• The amount of garden space necessary to yield one cup of flour.  The article states that three large zucchinis or about 5 pounds of zucchini are needed to produce 1 cup of flour.
• Then there are the man-hours involved:  shredding the zucchini and spreading it on trays.
• On top of that, running a dehydrator for a day or so to again yield only a couple cups of flour at most.  However, if you live in a dry area and can get the sun to do the bulk of the drying and then just finish up in the dehydrator, it may be worthwhile. 

I tried out three recipes using zucchini flour.  (In the interest of full disclosure, I'm not actually using zucchini from this year's crop, which is just barely starting to grow right now.  I powdered up some dehydrated shreds from last year.)

In the first go-round, I made biscuits, replacing 1/4 of the all-purpose flour with zucchini flour.  They didn't rise as well as they normally do, and they were a bit dense.  But the biggest drawback was probably the appearance.  They looked like they had been made with whole wheat flour--hard red whole wheat flour.  They tasted ok.  Lydia rated them perhaps a 5 out of 10.  (Of course, Lydia makes absolutely beautiful biscuits.  She could probably open up a biscuit bakery.)

The next attempt was using the flour in Becky's Best Brownies, replacing 1/3 of the flour with zucchini flour.  I think the brownies taste just fine.  I wish I'd put nuts in, but I didn't want to waste them in case the brownies didn't turn out well.  King of the Picky Eaters did not agree with my assessment.  He knew something was off.

And finally, I used the coarse zucchini flour to make tortillas, since the original author claimed that it worked so well.  However, I was a bit skeptical that they wouldn't turn out well enough for dinner, and I didn't have time for a do-over.  So I only made half the usual batch of tortillas, and I only substituted 1/6 of the whole wheat flour with zucchini flour.  The tortillas were a bit darker and browned more quickly. (Yeah, I think that was odd, too.)  Becky did her usual thing when I make tortillas, which is to say that she decided to have one before dinner.  Spread the butter on and scarfed it down.  She did not notice a thing.

Lydia, on the other hand, took one bite and wanted to know what I did to the tortillas.  She said they tasted a little bitter.  Aaron had no comment.  I really didn't notice anything different in the taste.

So, am I planting more zucchini this year to turn into flour?  No.  I'm all for hard work and producing as much as possible from our little corner of Eden, but it's just much easier to buy flour now and store it well, and save the zucchini for eating fresh when it grows in the garden.  Putting all that effort into planting, fertilizing, weeding, shredding, dehydrating, powdering, and storing the zucchini flour seems to be penny wise and pound foolish.  If I have an excess of zucchini, I'll just dehydrate or freeze-dry it for use in soups and casseroles and save myself the headache of turning it into flour.

References:

https://readynutrition.com/resources/how-to-make-zucchini-flour_13062022/

https://theworldofsurvival.com/survival-gardening/how-to-make-amish-flour-zucchini-flour/

Links to related posts:

The Incredible, Edible Zucchini  

Deep-Fried Zucchini  

The Medicinal Uses of Pumpkin and Other Squash  

Asian Zoodles  

Chocolate Zucchini Cake  

Zucchini Pancakes 

When Life Gives You Zucchini—Make Pineapple!  

All About Cocoa Powder (Becky's Best Brownies recipe)

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[i] https://www.verywellfit.com/summer-squash-and-zucchini-nutrition-facts-4114725