Buttery Patty Pan Squash With Basil Recipe (2024)

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Saturated Fat *IS* Healthy!

Food Renegade

challenging politically correct nutrition

May 17, 2018 by Kristen Michaelis CNC 26 Comments | Affiliate Disclosure

Patty pan squash recipes aren’t nearly as numerous as zucchini recipes. But to me, summer isn’t summer without fresh patty pan squash (…and tomatoes, and zucchini, and onions, and lemonade).

Patty pans go by many names. Depending on where you’re from, you might call them sunburst squash, scallop squash, button squash, or white squash. I call them patty pans. It’s much more fun that way.

This simple patty pan squash recipe takes minutes to prepare and tastes like summer thanks to the abundance of fresh basil. (And yes, where I live, it is summer already, and will be for at least the next 4 months!)

The Players

5 or 6 medium patty pan squash, sliced
1/4 C melted butter or ghee from grass-fed cows (where to find grass-fed butter & ghee)
1 bunch fresh basil, chopped (see: how to harvest basil)
sea salt (where to find REAL sea salt)

The How-To

Begin by preheating your oven to 350F degrees and prepping the veggies — cutting your patty pan squash into 1/4 inch slices and chopping your fresh basil.

Layer the patty pan slices at the bottom of a 2 quart baking dish and lightly drizzle with melted butter or ghee.

Scatter some freshly cut basil on top and lightly sprinkle with sea salt.

Continue forming these layers of patty pan squash, butter/ghee, basil, and salt until you’ve used all your squash and basil.

Cover the dish and bake it in the 350F degree oven for 30 minutes, or until the squash is tender. Remove from the oven and serve as a delectable side. In this case, it’s paired with butter-braised bite-sized pieces of strip steak. ENJOY!

If you’re looking for a reputable source of ghee or butter from grass-fed cows, check out the listings on my Resources Page.

About the Author

Kristen Michaelis CNC has been a Health and Nutrition Educator since 2008. Founder and CEO of Food Renegade, she's a passionate advocate for REAL FOOD -- food that's sustainable, organic, local, and traditionally-prepared according to the wisdom of our ancestors. She earned a Bachelor of Arts (summa cum laude) from Dallas Baptist University in Philosophy and Biblical Studies, then began her post-graduate journey as a researcher in the fields of health and nutrition. While she adores hats & happy skirts, nothing inspires her quite like geeking out over nutrition & sustainable agriculture. Nutrition educator & author of the go-to book on nutrition for fertility, she's also a rebel with a cause who enjoys playing in the rain, a good bottle of Caol Isla scotch, curling up with a page-turning book, sunbathing on her hammock, and parenting her three children as they grow into young adults.

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Comments

Ed Bruske says
Try this with chayote squash. You might like it even better.
Ed Bruske
See Also
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KristenM says
Mmm. I wonder if I’ll be getting any chayote squash in my CSA box anytime soon. Sounds lovely, Ed.
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Matt (No Meat Athlete) says
Looks good! I’m interested that you call grass-fed butter a healthy fat. I don’t really know much about it, but what I’ve always thought of as healthy fats are things like canola oil, flaxseed oil, fish oil, etc.
I understand why grass-fed is better than grain-fed (I just saw Michael Pollan speak this weekend!). But can anything make butter healthy? Please let me know about this!
Matt (No Meat Athlete)
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- Justmeint says
  Matt there is more and more evidence coming to light that plant based oils are not the healthy ones that we have been told they are. http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/unsaturated-oils.shtml
  http://www.marksdailyapple.com/polyunsaturated-fat/#axzz2WGjgtcPL
  May pay you to do some research
  Reply
Motherhen68 says
We don’t call it chayote squash, we call them miritons (mah-lee-tauhs). I’ve never eaten them cooked, just pickled, yum.
Kristen, it might be summer for us for the next 4-5 months, but isn’t today glorious? I’m planning a full afternoon of yard work! It may be the last time I truly enjoy being outside till Fall!
Motherhen68
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Maureen says
YUM! I just planted some basil so I can’t wait to try this.
I want to hear more about the butter braised steak!
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KristenM says
Matt — There are several places I can point you for my answer.
The first is to the link I actually linked to in the post with the words “healthy fat” next to butter in the ingredients list.
The second is to a video tutorial I created called Good Fat Bad Fat, which serves as a primer of sorts on healthy fats:
https://www.foodrenegade.com/good-fat-bad-fat-a-video-tutorial/
The third is a summary of the health benefits of butter on the Weston A Price foundation’s website, here:
http://www.westonaprice.org/foodfeatures/butter.html
In short, one of the basic premises of this website is that food needs to be REAL. My definition of Real food is quite practical. I’m talking about food that’s old and traditional. In other words, stuff your great grandmother would have recognized as food. Ideally, I’d even go so far as to say that it’s food that’s thousands of years old because I believe that the best foods for us to eat are the ones our bodies have adapted to eat.
As such, modern vegetable oils (including Canola, which wasn’t invented until 1970) don’t pass the test.
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See Also
The 75 Healthy Dinners You Need in Your Recipe Arsenal
Carol says
I saw patty pans at the farmers market last week so decided to get some. I had never had it before so I went online to get some ideas for what to do with it. Your recipe was the first one I pulled up and it looked so good I didn’t even look for any other recipes. I made it that night and it was wonderful. Thanks so much for the great recipe!
.-= Carol´s last blog post …If you register your site for free at =-.
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Leslie says
I just bought a patty pan squash from the Public Market where I live in NY, am really excited to try this recipe. Thanks!
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Gary says
I went to town on this recipe. I added jack cheese and mozzarella with each layer, threw in a layer of chopped Canadian Bacon, topped it off with tomato slices, grated Romano and basil leaves for accent. Oh yeah!! Because it was so big, I baked it for an hour and it turned out extremely well. Not a scrap left after dinner.
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- Lisa says
  Great idea! I’ll definitely try it!
  Reply
George says
We purchased a six-pack of yellow summer squash at the local garden supply store and planted them–three weeks later they started developing dozens of bright yellow pattypan squash. Obviously, the plants were mislabled, but what to do? Your recipe is a timely solution. Of course we’ve since discovered many other delicious uses for these very pretty cucurbits.
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Karin says
I added some sauteed onions and garlic, and a tad of asiago cheese on top. Delish
I plan on trying this recipe with cayote squash, cilantro and green onion. Thanks!
New to this site, love it!
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Tanya says
Thanks for this. I have more patty pans this year than I’ve ever had. I thought of roasting them in the oven, and this looks like a really yummy way to do it.
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Randy says
slice em up and saute in butter. Add some cinammon and sugar or splenda and wow. Cest Bon!
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Kimberly Cornea says
Thank you for the Patty Pan Recipes. Our community donates an over abundance of fresh organic produce,in Bellingham,Washington.
Please have more recipes of all vegetables,we’d all appreciate it so very much.
THANK YOU
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Tori Lynn says
My kids grew up calling them “flying saucers,” loved them. My husband is growing them this year because we haven’t found them in the stores or markets. they are great on the grill with carrots zuccini & what ever the garden produces.
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Dawn says
Loved this recipe, but it was too salty the first time. Second time I only put salt on last layer, but also layered thin sliced onions with the squash. Really good.
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Shirley says
Canola and soybean oils both called healthy on mainstream media are also both GMO foods. Yuck! I love my real organic Grass fed butter! It doesn’t mean you get to eat it out of balance. All fat is fat-just use some self-control.
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Aisha Smith says
I just made this recipe and totally loved it! Didn’t have basil, though, so I added some kale I had in my fridge and sprinkled dried dill and curry powder on top of everything before baking it. It was fantastic!
The pattypan squashes I had were kind of sweet. Next time I’m going to try baking them with honey and cinnamon!
I love good food and just wrote a blog post, referencing this recipe.
Thanks a heap! I didn’t even know what kind of squash I had until I found your recipe!
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Joy says
Thanks for the total inspiration! Like someone else I bought a variety pack from my food co-op. Never had patty pan before as well as a couple others I haven’t identified.
Another day I’m going to see about trading my neighbor some patty pans for basil. Win-Win. For today’s supper I decided to go with some of the replies and created a sweeter dish with ghee, maple syrup and Chinese 5-spice. Okay, I went and grabbed a couple apples off the lawn and sliced them in too. Sooo good. I wouldn’t have thought of any of this without you. Thanks! 😀
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Sue says
I had never had patty pan squash, but received some in my weekly fresh produce delivery. This recipe is so deceivingly simple, yet the flavor is incredible. I will make this all summer for bbq’s and potlucks, and al fresco dining out back. It’s just a delightful, delicate flavor. My family loved it, too. Winner!
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Lauren says
I just made this recipe with white patty pan squash. It was delicious!
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Sharon says
This sounds delicious! I am blessed with some lovely patty pan squash and my basil is ready for a trim, so this is on the menu for tonight. Love your site, and I know I will refer back to it again.
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Isadora says
We made this the other night and wow! I think the only thing I did differently was that I sort of chopped up my butter and placed it around as I layered instead of melting the butter. Otherwise, I followed the recipe. Yum! It was so good. We had tried stuffing a patty-pan last summer but it was too watery so we were excited to discover we were getting a patty-pan in our box this week. We only got one but man! So good. Since it’s just the hubby and I we have leftovers. I’ve been using the squashes in my scrambled eggs in the morning. Again. Yum! We love yellow squash but now we love patty-pan even more.
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Safa Rahimi says
Thanks I love your patty pan recipe I would like to try making it but I don’t think they sell this squash in any supermarket here I never heard of it or saw it before I came to learn about it when I found an old recipe of my minute grill which fell between the drawers in my kitchen for making finger licking chicken mash potato patties in scolded molds in my minute grill I don’t have any scolded molds so I ended up baking the patty in the oven and it came out very good and we all enjoyed it with my banana cake which I made for the family.
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