Zucchini Keeps Your Oatmeal Cookies Extra Moist

No matter what the reason or the season, it's always a good time to cook with versatile green zucchinis. Perhaps a delicious and classic zucchini bread recipe was your starting point, and now you're ready to try something new. Or maybe it's the end of summer and zucchinis are everywhere, or it could just be a mood. How about giving zucchini oatmeal cookies a go? If you love cookies more than the Cookie Monster, but want to find a healthier way to consume them, then this is the answer. Zucchinis are 94 percent water, which makes them the perfect add-in for oatmeal cookies, which can turn out dry if you tweak the ingredients in the wrong direction. While you'll be drawing out most of the moisture from the zucchini in this zucchini oatmeal cookies recipe, it will leave the ideal amount to make your cookies soft and exactly like an oatmeal cookie should be. 

Zucchini is a very easy ingredient to add, simply by mixing the grated shards into the rest of the cookie dough ingredients. Some bits of zucchini will be visible in the finished cookie, but they won't actually add much flavor. That's a good thing, especially when it comes to picky kids, because there's a good bit of nutrition here. Fiber, folate, magnesium, potassium, and vitamin C all show up in noticeable amounts of cooked zucchini. Forget about the children — this is comforting information for when you accidentally eat a whole tray of them during a cozy couch session in front of the television. 

Since zucchinis are so full of moisture, if you don't draw some of the water out, you'll bake a crispy little wisp of a cookie that burns easily. The grating allows you to easily squeeze out the water when you wrap them up in a paper towel. Use a box grater or a food processor to grate your zucchini, and depending on its size, you may need to slice it lengthwise and scoop out the seeds with a spoon if it's a monster veggie. The smaller seeds will go unnoticed in your cookies, especially after grating, but some giant homegrown zucchinis have seeds large enough that they need to be removed. You can also use a knife to chop the zucchini, but grating it is easier and quicker. In a recipe for nine large cookies, you'll need a cup of grated zucchini, which equates to about one average-sized vegetable.

Should you peel zucchini? There's no need to peel the zucchini before grating it. The skin contains all those healthy nutrients, and it's not tough. However, if you want to be sneaky, peeling the zucchini before shredding it means there will be no visual reminder that there is a vegetable in the cookie. Removing those green specks may be just the thing to win over a tough audience, but after the first bite it won't matter either way.