Yellow squash, cut into chunks, dipped in a blend of buttermilk and hot sauce and dredged in seasoned flour, sprayed with oil and air fried.

Air Fryer Squash Nuggets

I love summer squash and it can be prepared all kinds of ways - in a salad, stuffed, in a gratin, stir fried, smothered with onions, creamed, in a dressing, in a casserole and on the grill, among others.

And, I absolutely love deep fried squash y'all.

I mean deep fried foods are just so darned tasty - especially that good ole southern fried chicken!

A quick and easy skillet meal made with ground beef, fresh tomatoes, rice and summer squash and finished with shredded cheese.

Ground Beef and Squash Skillet

Y'all probably already know that I am into skillet meals. They're quicker than their more involved counterparts - like my skillet jambalaya, gumbolaya, skillet lasagna or ziti, and great for busy weeknights.

Like a lot of you, I also love summer squash, but mostly it gets pushed into being either a snack or a side, rather than a featured dish. This version makes it more main dish with the addition of ground beef and rice, though it's really a very versatile dish. Well drained canned or thawed frozen mixed vegetables or corn may also be added to expand it even further.

Sliced squash and chopped onions, caramelized in a skillet with bacon drippings and finished simply with salt, pepper and a pat of butter.

Skillet Squash

You don't really have to wait for summer to prepare summer squash because it's pretty much available year round these days. Still, it's one of my favorite, abundant and inexpensive, summer veggies, whether it's in a casserole, a dressing, in a gratin, or creamed. Heck, I even slice it up and snack on it raw!

Thickly cut slices of summer squash, tossed with extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper, and a mixture of dried herbs, then grilled.

Grilled Squash with Herbs

I hesitated to share this "recipe" at first but then I thought hey, the first time I ever wanted to grill squash, I had to look up "how to grill squash" because I wanted to do it right, so hopefully it will be helpful. There is always somebody, somewhere just learning to cook.

Besides y'all. Doesn't that just look scrumptious? It's really quite simple, but along the way I've discovered a couple of helpful tips.

A simple and easy side dish casserole made with diced yellow squash, bacon, small shrimp and corn.

Squash Casserole with Shrimp and Corn

Yeah, yeah, I know... everybody is all about pumpkins, soups, stews and fall dishes right now, but I'm still working on end of summer amid these nearly 100 degree days we're still having along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. That hasn't stopped me from making fall favorites like chicken and dumplings, shortcut shrimp etouffee and Cajun-style chicken and andouille gumbo, because I've fixed all of those the last couple of weeks!

This recipe involves the use of yellow straightneck or crookneck squash, a veggie once relegated strictly to the summer months, but now available slap dab in the middle of winter these days. I admit, it's nice but I can't quite get used to that, although you still can't beat the flavor of one that's plucked right out of your backyard.

A cornbread dressing made with yellow squash, sauteed with onion, celery and bell pepper.

Cornbread Squash Dressing

I hear from a reliable source that squash is starting to come in! I didn't plant any this year so if you're trying to get rid of some, stop on by with a bag and I'll gladly take some off your hands!

For some reason, I never see pattypan squash around here, not even at the farmer's market, but yellow squash happens to be my favorite in the summer squash family. I like it far better than zucchini, though I do eat both. I think yellow is a little sweeter and more mellow than zucchini but both make pretty good zoodles.

Mirliton (Chayote Squash) Seafood Casserole

Mirliton (Chayote Squash) Seafood Casserole, a casserole made with mirliton, the trinity, shrimp, andouille, crab, bread crumbs and seasonings. Increase bread crumbs for a mirliton dressing.

Mirliton Seafood Casserole

It's mirliton season in the Deep South! I'm guessing that some of you are likely thinking right now... what the heck is that?

Mirlitons, or in Cajun Country, Alligator Pears

Southern Style Skillet Ratatouille - a simple stew of diced vegetables, made with bacon drippings, the Trinity of Southern Cooking, zucchini and summer squash, tomato, eggplant, okra and fresh herbs.

Southern Style Skillet Ratatouille

Most folks these days seem to associate ratatouille with the Disney movie of the same name, and many may only know it from that. It actually is a real Mediterranean dish, most closely associated with France and said to have originated in Nice. The word perhaps comes from "touiller" and translates to mean something akin to "toss or stir."

Traditionally ratatouille is simply zucchini and tomatoes, with peppers, garlic and onion, sometimes sliced, sometimes cut into chunks. Somewhere along the way, eggplant was included, and though it wasn't always a part of the traditional dish, it's pretty much expected these days. I decided to make it with a dice of a variety of summer vegetables that we love in the south.

A vegetable skillet meal, made from fresh summer squash, sweet Vidalia onion, with fresh okra and tomato.

Summer Veggie Skillet - Squash and Okra with Onion and Tomato

This is one of my favorite summertime skillet vegetable dishes - just simply squash and sweet onions, sauteed in a little bit of bacon drippings and butter, and stewed down with sliced okra, fresh tomatoes and finished with some garden parsley and basil. Quick and easy to make, I can make a meal of this entire pan on these hot summer days!

Young, tender, yellow summer squash, prepared simple and basic. Sweet Vidalia onion and bell pepper is first sauteed in bacon drippings and butter, the squash is added, and slowly smothered down.

Smothered Summer Squash and Onions

Yellow squash is plentiful in our Southern summers and this is pretty much my top favorite way to enjoy it. It's the same basic way many of our other favorite squash recipes begin anyway, from creamed squash to squash dressing and casseroles, though it sure stands pretty well all on its own too.

A marinated squash salad using summer vegetables, including squash, zucchini, vidalia onion, sweet bell pepper and jalapenos and dressed in a horseradish infused, sweet and sour "Fire and Ice" vinaigrette.

Fire 'n Ice Marinated Squash Salad

I have mentioned many times here, that like most other Southerners, I am a huge fan of the flavor of sweet and sour, most especially when it comes to salads. To that, however, I also like a little heat added too, so from pickles, to coleslaw, to one of my favorite cucumber and tomato salads, I love the "Fire 'n Ice" versions that bring in a bit of fire.

Marinated squash salads are popular here in the summer, so I thought why not bring those fire and ice elements in there too?

Fresh squash and tomatoes are paired with Vidalia onion and sweet bell peppers, topped with cheese and buttered bread crumbs and baked.

Squash Creole

Vidalia onions, okra, vine ripe tomatoes and green beans, freshly shucked corn, butter beans, southern peas and sweet bell peppers, yellow crookneck squash, zucchini and garden fresh cucumbers. I just love the veggies of summer. Have you gotten your fill yet?

Summer squash - zucchini, crookneck or a mixture of the two will work - is briefly stewed in onion, garlic and cream, mixed with leftover cooked rice, topped with a Parmesan breadcrumb and baked to a crispy golden brown delicious.

Summer Squash and Rice Gratin

As I watched The veggie hating Cajun shovel this in with our meal, y'all know I had to grin, but he caught me peeking at him! "I know," he says, "what is it?" "It's food," I say, grinning. "Just eat it."  He did! Every, single, speck of it. That says a lot y'all, coming from a non-veggie eating man.

This was a delicious side dish that I adapted from Real Cajun, a cookbook that you may recall I recently reviewed. The photography in this cookbook is simply incredible, so much so that as the book lay by my chair on the floor, my youngest cat was convinced that the crab claw poking out of the gumbo on the cover was a real crab. I wish you could have seen him inching and backing off from the book, and finally reaching out and carefully patting at it multiple times with his paw, only then convinced it was just a photo!  If you're a cat owner, this behavior makes complete sense to you.

Old Fashioned Creamed Squash

 

Yellow crookneck squash and Vidalia onion, first sauteed in a mixture of butter and bacon drippings, then stewed down, and finally creamed - a delicious taste experience!

Creamed Squash

I was gifted with a bag of some early spring crookneck squash and figured that I would just either sauté it in a bit of bacon drippings with some Vidalia onion, or otherwise make one of the usual squash dishes. I then decided to pose the question to our Facebook family asking, "what is your favorite thing to do with yellow squash?"

The readers there came through - as they always do - with lots of ideas, suggestions, and personal favorites... but one really stood out with me.

Carla mentioned that she had first encountered yellow squash at about the age of 15 in a somewhat unusual way. She was babysitting for a family back then, and the child's grandmother would regularly prepare a big supper. One day Carla took a large spoonful of what she thought was creamed corn, but which actually turned out to be squash! Thick and creamy and peppered just right, she loved it. When another reader Katherine chimed in with a similar experience, she spoke of how good it smelled and how she "couldn't stop eating it." Well, I knew I would just have to try it.

Summer squash, stuffed with bell pepper, onion, tomatoes and pepper jack cheese, and topped with a sprinkle of panko bread crumbs.

Cheesy Stuffed Summer Squash

This is another great recipe to use those prolific summer squash, garden fresh tomatoes and even some of those bell peppers too. I just had to show the image below, which shows the pre-breaded squash because the stuffing is just so fresh looking.

A squash and tomato casserole, layered in a pan with sweet Vidalia onions, bacon and cheese, and seasonings, topped with panko bread crumbs and garnished with a chiffonade of fresh basil.

Layered Squash and Tomato Casserole

Yes, I know... it's hot out, but if you don't mind turning on the oven, this is a great way to enjoy those fresh summer squash and garden tomatoes.

You could eliminate the bacon if you like (but why would you want to?!), but don't skip the panko if at all possible - it provides a wonderful crunchy contrast to the tender vegetables.

A wonderful side dish combining seasonal butternut squash with sweet potato and a praline topping, perfect for the holidays.

Praline Butternut Squash and Sweet Potato Casserole

Try adding this combination of sweet potatoes with butternut squash to your holiday menu.

We have a pretty short window of availability for any kind of winter squash in the south, and butternut barely gets a passing glance in the grocery stores here. Given that, it isn't a squash that I have experimented with much.

One thing I did find, however, was that I was not too wild about it at all in any kind of soup form, which seems one of the most common ways it is presented.

Shrimp and Crab Stuffed Mirlitons (Chayote Squash)

Chayote squash, known in the Deep South as mirliton or vegetable pears, are steamed and then filled with a seafood stuffing.

Shrimp and Crab Stuffed Mirlitons

Once found in the Deep South as a product of the states of Florida and Louisiana only during the fall months, Chayote squash is now generally available nearly year round thanks to California and Mexico. Chayote squash is really nothing more than what we affectionately know down here as mirlitons, or they are sometimes also called vegetable pears, and they are the perfect vehicle for a seafood stuffing.

Summer squash is mixed with the Trinity of vegetables, cream soup, eggs and fresh bread, for a squash dressing.

Summer Squash Dressing

Here's another recipe you might want to consider for your squash bounty! It's really a basic run of the mill squash dressing that we all pretty much have, this one using toasted bread crumbs. I decided to add in a bit of Trinity and some Cajun seasoning, just to bump up the flavor a bit.

Summer squash, sliced or cut into sticks or chunks, are tossed in buttermilk, then dredged into a lightly seasoned flour mixture, and quickly deep fried to crunchy goodness.

Fried Squash

Okay, yeah, I know... fried squash ain't exactly the healthiest way to eat summer squash, but I've been pretty lucky so far with my squash plants {crosses fingers} and so, I'm trying to get a few different recipes up for summer squash. Maybe you shouldn't eat these every day, but I have to say, they sure are good enough to want to!