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An Outdoor Cook's Notebook - August 2026
The courgette glut: what to do with them
Ninety-five percent water. That single number explains nearly everything that goes wrong with a courgette on the heat, and nearly everything that goes right when you put it over a proper fire instead of a pan on the hob. By now, if you grow them, you are picking daily just to keep the plants producing. The question isn't whether to cook courgette; it's how to cook it so it tastes of something.
The science bit
The problem with courgette is straightforward physics. Put a wet slice into a moderate pan and the surface water has to boil off before the surface can get hot enough to brown. While that's happening, the courgette is steaming in its own moisture - it goes soft and pale before it ever gets the chance to caramelise. The Maillard reaction, which is what gives you browning and complex savoury flavour, only happens once the surface is properly dry and genuinely hot. A moderate pan rarely delivers both conditions fast enough.
A grill, a kamado griddle, or a wood-fired oven solves this by brute force. The heat is high and dry enough that surface water flashes off almost immediately, the surface reaches browning temperature, and you get real char and caramelised natural sugars rather than steamed courgette. As America's Test Kitchen notes, courgette is among the most water-dense vegetables you can cook - "only lettuce contains more water" - so the method matters more here than it does with almost anything else from the garden.
There's a genuine myth worth addressing. A lot of recipes tell you to salt courgette slices before cooking to draw out moisture by osmosis. As Tasting Table explains, "when salt is sprinkled on the flesh of a water-dense fruit like zucchini and left to sit for a while, a process known as osmosis occurs." That's real, and it's genuinely useful before frying, sautéing, or making fritters, where you're fighting a shallow pan and lower heat. Over a proper grill or in a wood oven, the logic largely doesn't hold - at high, dry heat, the water is evaporating fast enough on its own that pre-salting isn't necessary. If your courgette tastes bitter rather than just watery, that's usually a size issue: older, larger courgettes left too long on the plant carry more bitterness, and a light salting and rinse can help with that - but it's solving a different problem entirely.
Practical technique
Cut method matters more than seasoning. Lengthwise planks, roughly 1cm thick, or thin ribbons peeled with a vegetable peeler, both work well on a grill. Rounds are the classic mistake - they're thin enough to slip through grill bars and need constant turning to cook evenly. Planks and ribbons stay put and give you a broad surface for browning.
Over direct medium-high heat, three to five minutes a side is the general rule. Wait until you see real grill marks and the courgette releases cleanly from the grate rather than sticking - that's the sign the surface has properly seared and is ready to turn. Colour is the signal, not softness. A courgette that's tender but pale has been steamed rather than seared, and the flavour will be thin.
Compatibility across cooking equipment
This works across every format, which is part of why it suits a glut - whatever you have lit, it applies.
On gas, high direct heat around 260°C sears well. Several gas grills, Bull among them, offer an infrared searing burner for an even hotter, more direct blast if you want serious char quickly.
On a kamado, a cast iron half-moon griddle heated past 260°C gives a proper sear before a shorter finish over direct flame. The mass of cast iron holds temperature steadily even when you load it with several planks at once, which matters when you're working through a glut rather than cooking two or three pieces.
On a pellet grill, direct grilling at around 175°C with the lid down and the courgette placed cut-side to the grate is the manufacturer's own approach - Traeger, for instance, recommends preheating with the lid closed for 15 minutes before the courgette goes on. You can go lower and slower for a smokier, softer result if that's what you're after, though you'll sacrifice some of the char.
In a wood-fired oven, courgette doesn't need the main firebox heat at all. A cast iron skillet set in the embers after your pizzas are done is plenty. As one DeliVita user found, vegetables come out "charred and crisped up in all the right places" - and in practice, chopped courgette alongside onion, pepper and garlic with a drizzle of olive oil needs around five minutes flat in the residual heat. Nothing is wasted, and the oven earns its keep twice over.
What to do and what to avoid
Do:
- Wait for colour - grill marks and genuine browning - before turning or removing.
- Cut into planks or ribbons rather than rounds.
- Give pieces room on the grate or griddle surface; they need space to sear, not steam.
- Pat pieces reasonably dry after any marinade before they hit the heat.
- Use residual wood-oven heat after pizza - a cast iron skillet in the embers is enough.
Don't:
- Pull courgette off the heat just because it feels tender - softness without colour means it's been steamed, not seared.
- Crowd the grill basket or griddle; packed together, the pieces steam in each other's moisture.
- Over-marinate and then wonder why it won't brown - a heavily oiled, wet surface delays the Maillard reaction the same way excess moisture does.
- Assume pre-salting is necessary before grilling; it's a frying technique, and the fire handles the water on its own.
Questions people actually ask
The salting question comes up constantly, and the answer is that it depends what you're cooking on. For frying or fritters, salt in advance - you're fighting a shallower heat and the osmosis genuinely helps. For a grill or wood oven, the fire is already solving the problem for you, and salting before grilling is solving something that isn't broken. The one exception is if you're dealing with older, larger courgettes that taste bitter: a light salting and rinse addresses that, though it's a bitterness fix, not a moisture fix.
Mushy grilled courgette is almost always an overcrowding problem. The pieces have steamed in each other's moisture rather than searing individually. Give them space, and the problem resolves itself.
Rounds versus planks: planks. Rounds fall through grill bars and cook unevenly; they're a pan shape, not a grill shape.
And if you have a wood-fired oven and don't want to light it specially: you don't need to. A cast iron skillet in the residual embers after pizza is plenty hot enough, and five minutes is often all it takes. The oven has already done its main work; the courgette is a bonus.
If you'd like to see any of these techniques in action, visit us at Cedar Nursery's Kitchen in the Garden in Cobham, Surrey - we're happy to talk through the equipment and cook something on the spot.
Come and see one cooked on. Kitchen in the Garden, Cobham, Surrey.