Who said vegetables can‘t be fun? Eating balanced and healthy means incorporating a variety of foods into your diet in order to meet your nutritional needs– but this doesn’t have to be boring. Just like my spaghetti squash recipe a couple months back, there are so many delicious ways to reap the benefits of vegetables– and who doesn’t like french fries? Recently, my favorite vegetables to “make over,” if you will, have been zucchini and sweet potatoes. The recipes that I am going to share with you today would work with many vegetables, so feel free to try out your favorites and tweak the recipes here and there to complement your vegetable of choice. 

I want to preface this recipe by saying that I would strongly recommend using an air fryer if you have one. The air fryer makes the vegetables less greasy than hot oil and creates a crispy texture in record time. Of course, if an air fryer isn’t available to you, a regular oven will work just fine. For the zucchini, which has a more mild, subtle flavor than the sweet potato, nothing goes better than the sharp taste of parmesan cheese and garlic. As for the sweet potato, the starchy but mildly sweet vegetable blends extremely well with a delicious array of spices. I don’t believe these fries require any sort of sauce to bring out their flavor, but you can dip the tasty starters in ranch, sriracha mayo, ketchup, etc. I don’t judge. 

For the zucchini:

Ingredients:

• 1 large green zucchini
• 1 cup flour
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• ½ cup parmesan cheese
• 1 cup breadcrumbs
• ¼ cup fresh parsley
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano

Instructions:

1. In a bowl, pour your flour. Set aside.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk two eggs. Set aside.
3. In a third bowl, mix breadcrumbs, parmesan cheese, garlic powder, oregano and chopped parsley.
4. Cut zucchini into sticks of your preferred size (warning: they will shrink down in length in the air fryer). I would recommend ½ inch. 
5. Dip zucchini into flour, then into egg and finally, into breadcrumbs.
6. Lay out in the air fryer and set on 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 minutes, turning halfway. Make sure you don’t have fries on top of each other, as it will make the texture less crispy, so do two separate batches if needed.
7. Sprinkle fries with salt, pepper and fresh parmesan cheese.

For the sweet potatoes:

Ingredients: 

• 1 sweet potato
• ½ teaspoon garlic powder
• ½  teaspoon onion powder
• ½  teaspoon cayenne pepper
• ½  teaspoon paprika
• Splash of olive oil
• 1 ½ teaspoon rosemary

Instructions: 

1. Peel sweet potatoes and cut into ½ inch fries. Lightly coat with olive oil (or canola).
2. In a bowl, mix together seasonings and lather on fries.
3. Put in the air fryer at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 minutes, flipping halfway through.
4. Sprinkle fries with salt, pepper and fresh/dried rosemary. 

Happy cooking!