Grilling season means kebabs, and these grilled salmon and zucchini skewers are winners. They take just a bit of time to put together and a mere 10 minutes to cook. Grab a plate and belly up to the grill, kids.
Adapted from Genevieve Taylor | Foolproof BBQ | Quadrille, 2021
A fish cage is useful for cooking the kebabs. It will help prevent sticking and you can turn all the skewers in one go.–Genevieve Taylor
☞ Contents
Grilled Salmon and Zucchini Skewers
Equipment
- 4 metal skewers
- Fish grilling basket (optional)
Ingredients
For the salmon and zucchini skewers
- 2 medium (1 lb) zucchini
- 1 lemon
- 18 to 21 ounces skinless salmon fillets, cut into 1-inch (25-mm) cubes
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
For the herby yogurt sauce
- 9 ounces Greek yogurt (about 1 cup)
- A handful of mixed fresh herbs (parsley, cilantro, chives) chopped
- 1 garlic clove finely chopped
- Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
To serve
- Boiled new potatoes
- Green salad with sliced avocado
Directions
Make the salmon and zucchini skewers
- Prepare a charcoal or gas grill for direct grilling. Once hot, give the grate a good scrub with a wire brush. A clean, hot grate will help minimize sticking, even if you're using a fish cage.
- Use a vegetable peeler to slice the zucchini into thin ribbons. Cut the lemon into quarters and then slice each quarter into 1/8 inch (2-3mm) slices.
- Take a skewer and thread a piece of salmon onto it, then fold up a ribbon of zucchini and thread that on, followed by a piece of lemon. Repeat until you have used all the skewers and remaining salmon, zucchini, and lemon slices.
- Drizzle over the olive oil, and season with salt and pepper. If you're using a fish cage, line up the skewers in it.
Make the herby yogurt sauce
- In a medium bowl, mix the sauce ingredients thoroughly and season with salt and pepper to taste.
Grill the skewers
- Lay the skewers (in a fish cage/grill basket, if using) onto the grate directly over the fire and cook, turning once, until the fish is just cooked through, 3 to 5 minutes per side. Using a metal spatula to turn the skewers will help you ease off any areas that are a bit stuck.
- Serve hot from the grill with the potatoes, salad, and yogurt sauce.
Notes
How can I tame the assertive flavor of raw garlic?
☞TESTER TIP: Linda Pacchiano, one of our longtime senior testers writes of cooking with raw garlic: “The use of raw garlic in any dish can be pretty pungent and can overpower the other components, so be sure to use an amount of garlic that suits your taste and tolerance. Boiling the garlic in water or milk for 3 to 5 minutes, or zapping it in the microwave for a couple of minutes, deactivates allicin, the compound in raw garlic that’s responsible for its hot, sharp bite.”Show Nutrition
If you make this recipe, snap a photo and hashtag it #LeitesCulinaria. We’d love to see your creations on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
Originally published July 9, 2021
Recipe Testers’ Reviews
A tasty addition to our summer grilling repertoire and an easy way to add fish into our diet. This recipe for grilled salmon and zucchini skewers is simple to execute and a complete meal with the addition of potatoes and green salad. Salmon is sometimes a hit-or-miss fish for me taste-wise, but cooking on the grill enhanced the salmon with otherwise minimal seasoning. I was able to cook the salmon without a grill basket but I’ll be purchasing one for future use, as this seems to be a foolproof way to have fish on the grill on a regular basis.
HUNGRY FOR MORE?
If you make this recipe, snap a photo and hashtag it #LeitesCulinaria. We'd love to see your creations on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
Linda Pacchiano
Grilled kebabs are a great summertime dish, or for any time of the year if you have indoor grilling capabilities or a weather-protected outdoor grill. Rather than the usual chicken or shrimp kebabs that we typically make, this recipe gave us a nice, possibly even more appealing, alternative.
With all the salmon that many of us consume for health benefits, this recipe for grilled salmon and zucchini skewers will, perhaps, give you a new way of serving salmon. It certainly helped us out of our “rut” of simply grilling it with a bit of olive oil and a sprinkling of herbs and lemon. As an added benefit, this dish is quite colorful and visually appealing.
I could see this dish working with other types of fish as long as the fish has a degree of thickness and firmness, similar to the salmon. This could include a budget-friendly tilapia, halibut for a bit of a splurge, or a nice piece of cod which would be somewhere in between cost-wise. You could easily change up the veggie by using grape tomatoes, eggplant, bell peppers, red onions, etc.
I served this with the recommended boiled new potatoes, adding some salt, pepper, melted butter, and minced parsley to make them a bit more interesting. Any rice would also work nicely as a side for this dish. I also included a small side salad topped with creamy avocado slices, as recommended. It all made for a beautiful presentation and together with the herby yogurt sauce, no other accompaniments were needed.
Grilling for a total of five minutes produced the perfect amount of doneness and imparted a nice, smoky flavor to each of the components. One filled skewer was the perfect portion size for one person, but if you have a guest with a heartier appetite, two skewers might be needed, in which case, I suggest going with the higher end of the recommended salmon weight of 1 pound, 5 ounces and increase the number of skewers, vegs, and lemon as needed.