Vegan Zucchini Pie

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What to expect

A zucchini pie is a baked dish containing a savory filling wrapped in a pastry dough casing. It’s filled with sauteed zucchini and red onions, which keep it moist and give it a lot of flavor.

The best thing is that this recipe is extremely versatile, and you can use it in multiple occasions. You can eat it warm for dinner with a light tomato cucumber salad. Or serve it for brunches and birthdays to impress your guests.

You can even let it cool down, cut it in slices and bring it to a picnic, or eat it as a snack. You freeze it, and it will still taste great! So it’s perfect for meal prep.

And if you are too busy to make the pastry casing, you can just bake it “naked”, in a pie dish lined with parchment paper.

The secret, star ingredient in our zucchini pie is chickpea flour (also known as garbanzo bean flour). It allows us to make a pie without eggs or tofu, but still moist, nutritious, and fulfilling.

I promise: you won’t be able to taste the chickpea flour at all!

Follow our recipe and you’ll be able to make the best zucchini pie you’ve ever had, without eggs, without dairy, and without tofu.

Ingredients & Substitutions

For the zucchini pie filling

• Zucchini: we like to use zucchinis that are not too big, so we can cut them in cute round slices.
  
• Red onion: we prefer red to white onion because they are less pungent, and sweeter. You can replace it with leek or shallots.
  
• Chickpea flour: also known as garbanzo bean flour is the main ingredient in this recipe. You can replace it with red lentil flour or with fava bean flour, but for best results stick to chickpea/garbanzo bean flour. This recipe does NOT work with soy flour or with regular wheat flour.
  
• Olive oil: we like to use extra virgin olive oil. You could replace it with other vegetable oils, but the flavour will be slightly different.
  
• Water: plain water to mix the chickpea flour.
  
• Baking powder: it helps make the filling lighter, it’s a key ingredient in this recipe.
  
• Nutritional yeast: this adds the cheesy flavour and saltiness to the filling. It really is perfect in this recipe.
  
• Salt & pepper: to season the filling. For pro vegan cooks, a pinch of kala-namak – a black Indian rock salt – can be added to give a stronger eggy flavour. However this is not necessary and strictly optional.
  
• Dairy-free parmesan/vegan cheese: this is optional, but when we have it at home, we like to sprinkle it on top of the pie, before baking it.

For the pie crust

The pie crust for this zucchini pie is extremely easy to make. You’ll only need water, all-purpose flour, salt and olive oil.

Make the chickpea batter

In a bowl, add chickpea flour, water, olive oil, nutritional yeast, a pinch of salt, and pepper. Blend with an immersion blender for about three minutes. You can also use a regular blender.

The batter needs to be completely smooth. Now, set aside, and go back to the dough.

TIP: we did many tests, beating the batter with a fork, with a whisk, and with an electric beater. But an immersion blender or a regular blender yields the best results.

Transfer the chickpea-zucchini mix into the pie crust. Move the zucchini around with a spoon to make sure they are evenly distributed.

Fold the excess pie crust onto the filling, to create a rim. If you want, you can sprinkle with dairy-free cheese/parmesan.

Then bake for 30 minutes at 390F or 200C. Your zucchini pie is ready when is crisp and golden on top, but stil moist and soft inside.

The pie can be eaten warm, or at room temperature.

Tips

Add the baking powder last: add it just before adding in the zucchini, and shortly before baking. This way we take advantage of all leavening power of the powder, while the pie is in the oven. It’ll turn out lighter this way.

Let dough rest: before rolling, it’s really helpful to let the dough rest for at least 30 minutes at room temperature, covered with a kitchen cloth. Resting will relax the gluten, making it a lot easier for you to roll the dough thin.

Taste the zucchini: I recommend tasting the zucchini before adding them to the chickpea flour batter. They should be well seasoned.

Don’t overcook the zucchini pie: overcooking will dry out the pie. I wouldn’t cook it more than 30 minutes, but in some ovens it might take a few minutes less.

Questions

Storage

You can refrigerate the zucchini pie for up to 3 days. Then warm it up in the microwave for a few seconds, or in an oven with the grill function.

The pie can also be frozen. To freeze, wait for it to cool completely, then place it in a freezing bag and freeze for up to 3 months.

Thaw it in the refrigerator, then warm up in the microwave or oven. Alternatively, thaw in the microwave.

Variations

Use a different vegetable: broccoli, tomatoes, boiled potatoes, artichoke hearts, asparagus, and mushrooms. Those are just some of the veggies that you can add or use on their own, to make other delicious pies.

Crustless zucchini pie: you can either make a crustless zucchini pie and bake it in the oven, or cook it in a pan with olive oil. When it comes to crustless, we slightly prefer the one cooked on a pan. Follow our recipe for our zucchini frittata, to see how to cook it.

Oil-free version: cook the zucchini and the onion in 1/2 cup of water. You can also make the dough without oil. Just remove it from the ingredients. Then use parchment paper to line your pie dish. And here you go. A zucchini pie with no oil.

More zucchini recipes

For many more starter ideas, check out our starters category page.