Zucchini and Herbed Goat Cheese Tart

In these crazy times, probably the last thing on your mind is eating vegetables. We all want comfort foods – cookies and banana bread are especially popular right now, but also pantry pastas and homemade breads. We have definitely been guilty of eating our fair share of carbs in this house during quarantine, but we have been trying to get some healthy meals in there too. I wouldn’t quite say this tart is healthy (there’s a lot of butter and cheese!), but at the very least you’ll get some green vegetables in your diet, which you might be missing right now. It’s a good gateway to eating a salad!

There’s a lot of options on how you can make this tart at home. You can use frozen puff pastry as the base or store bough tart dough. You can also use your favorite pie dough recipe and bring it together quickly in a food processor! The dough I have shared the recipe for below is like a super flaky pie dough with tons of layers, but it has a few extra steps to laminate the dough to create those layers. But definitely feel free to use something else as the base that’s quicker to pull together!

If you do decide to make this dough, essentially you are going to make a butter pie dough. You will freeze your butter and grate it and then combine that with flour, salt, lemon juice, and ice water. You will chill this mixture for about 20 minutes.

Once you have this dough made, you will then add layers of butter to the dough by laminating the dough, the way you would for a rough puff pastry. To do this, you will roll out your dough to a long rectangle and add frozen, grated butter to the middle third. Then you will fold the bottom third over the butter, add more butter on top of that, and then fold the top third down. Turn the dough 90 degrees and roll out again and repeat these steps.

Then you’ll chill your dough again. You can add more folds without the butter to create a base closer to a rough puff, or you can stop at this step for something more similar to a super flaky pie dough. Either way, make sure when you roll out the dough, you prick the dough all over. All of that butter is going to melt and then create steam. You want that steam to have a way to escape the crust so you don’t end up with bubbles.

The topping brings tons of flavor and you can pivot based off of what you have at home. All you have to do is combine the feta and goat cheese and then top with your zucchini strips that have been dried out a bit and tossed with olive oil, garlic powder, and lemon pepper. If you don’t have feta, use a different cheese! Maybe some parmesan or ricotta. If you don’t have lemon pepper, use regular pepper and some lemon zest! You can lay the zucchini on the tart however you please. I got a little creative and made a lattice out of the zucchini strips, but you can just lay them down, making sure they slightly overlap because the zucchini shrinks as it cooks.

You can eat this hot out of the oven or at room temperature. It is delicious both ways. When I told Jared I was working on a zucchini tart, he was very skeptical. But he absolutely LOVES this dish now. For days he ate a slice with his lunch. Leftovers also keep very well in the refrigerator or freezer.

Print Recipe

Zucchini and Herbed Goat Cheese Tart

This zucchini and herbed goat cheese tart makes the perfect appetizer, lunch or side dish. It’s easy to make and delivers on flavor!

Prep Time1 hour hr 30 minutes mins

Cook Time45 minutes mins

Course: Appetizer

Cuisine: American

Keyword: goat cheese, tart, zucchini

Servings: 1 10″x15″ tart

Ingredients

For the dough (or you can use store bought pie dough or puff pastry)

• 1.5 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 1.5 sticks unsalted butter frozen and grated, separated
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 4 tbsp ice water

For the topping:

• 2 medium zucchini sliced lengthwise 1/8″ thick
• 1 tbsp olive oil or other neutral oil
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 1/4 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp lemon pepper
• 4 oz garlic and herb goat cheese room temperature
• 3 oz feta

Instructions

For the pastry (if you are making your own):

• In a large bowl, combine the flour and salt.
• Add half of the frozen butter to the flour mixture and immediately return the rest of the butter to the freezer.
• Add the lemon juice and ice water and mix until a dough clumps begin to form. If you squeeze the mixture tightly with your hands, it should stick together. If it doesn’t, add a bit more ice water.
• Transfer the large dough pieces to a work surface and add a bit more water to the smaller pieces until dough clumps begin to form from them. Add them to your larger dough piece.
• Knead to form a single mass of dough. Press into a 1 inch thick square and wrap tightly in plastic wrap.
• Chill for 30 minutes.
• Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface to a large rectangle, you want it to be about 3 times long as it was wide.
• Divide the remaining frozen butter into 4 equal parts. Add one part to the center of your dough rectangle and fold the bottom third over top of the butter.
• Add the next part of the butter on top of that and fold the top third of the dough over top of the butter. Seal the edges.
• Rotate the dough 90 degrees and roll out again to a large rectangle. Repeat the folding process to include the rest of the butter.
• Press the edges tightly to seal again and then wrap tightly in plastic and chill for 20 minutes.
• If you want to create more of a puff pastry type of dough, remove the dough after chilling and repeat the folds and turns two more times without adding additional butter. Without doing these additional folds, you will get a super flaky and layered pie dough. If you choose to do additional folds, chill the dough for 30 minutes before rolling it out to use it.

To assemble:

• Preheat the oven to 400F and prepare a baking sheet by covering with parchment paper.
• While the dough chills, place the sliced zucchini in a colander with 1/2 tsp of salt. Let it sit for 30 minutes to let some of the water out.
• Wring out the zucchini with a towel to remove extra liquid. Pat dry with a towel and then toss with the olive oil, garlic powder, and lemon pepper.
• In a small bowl, mix the feta and goat cheese with a fork until fully combined.
• Roll the dough out to a 10×15 inch rectangle. Transfer to parchment lined baking sheet and prick the entire sheet of dough with a fork, leaving a 1 inch border.
• Bake the pastry in the oven for 15 minutes to get a crisp bottom.
• Remove from the oven and top with the cheese mixture. Spread the cheese out until the 1 inch border. Top with the zucchini. You can make a lattice pattern with the zucchini like I did or you can lay the zucchini however you want! Just make sure that your zucchini overlaps a bit, it will shrink in the oven as it bakes.
• Bake for 30 more minutes, until the zucchini is beginning to brown and crisp and the crust is golden brown all over.
• Slice into 9 evenly sized rectangles and serve!

Notes

You can store leftovers in an air tight container in the refrigerator for 3 days. The tarts are great reheated in the toaster oven. Alternatively, these are great reheated from frozen. They can be kept frozen in an air tight container for longer.