Corn, Zucchini & Tomatoes with Goat Cheese

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Searching for the perfect summer side dish to wow your guests? This colorful corn, zucchini, and tomato sauté with creamy goat cheese pairs beautifully with simply grilled chicken, salmon, or steak.

Corn, Zucchini & Tomatoes with Goat Cheese

The inspiration for this recipe comes from one of my favorite new Southern cookbooks, Secrets of the Southern Table: A Food Lover’s Tour of the Global South by Virginia Willis. Virginia is a wonderful storyteller and her book is filled with recipes that celebrate the heritage of Southern cooking. I made Virginia’s roasted stuffed tomatoes and thought the corn, vegetable, and goat cheese filling was so delicious, that it would make a wonderful side dish on its own. The genius is the addition of goat cheese, which adds loads of flavor and creaminess. This is the perfect side dish to jazz up simple grilled chicken, cedar plank salmon, or grilled flank steak.

What You’ll Need to Make Corn, Zucchini & Tomatoes with Goat Cheese

Ingredients including onion, olive oil, and goat cheese.

Step-by-Step Instructions

To begin, heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-low heat. Add the shallots and cook until soft and translucent, about 2 minutes. Add the garlic and cook 1 minute more. Do not brown.

Garlic and shallots in a skillet.

Add the corn and zucchini and increase the heat to medium. Cook for 2 minutes, stirring frequently.

Skillet with zucchini and corn.

Add the tomatoes, salt, pepper, and sugar and continue to cook for about 2 minutes more, until the tomatoes start to break down.

Tomatoes, zucchini, and corn in a skillet.

Break the goat cheese into chunks and stir it into the vegetables until creamy and well-combined.

Chunks of goat cheese over vegetables in a skillet.

Off the heat, stir in the fresh basil along with 3 tablespoons of warm water.

Basil in a skillet with vegetables.

Taste and adjust seasoning with more salt and pepper, if necessary.

Skillet of creamy corn, zucchini, and tomatoes with goat cheese.

Serve warm and enjoy!

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Corn, Zucchini & Tomatoes with Goat Cheese

Searching for the perfect summer side dish to wow your guests? This colorful corn, zucchini, and tomato sauté with creamy goat cheese pairs beautifully with simply grilled chicken, salmon, or steak.

Servings: 4 to 6
Prep Time: 20 Minutes
Cook Time: 10 Minutes
Total Time: 30 Minutes

Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
  • ½ cup chopped shallots, from 1 to 2 shallots
  • 1 large clove garlic, minced
  • 2¼ cups fresh corn kernels, cut from 3 large ears corn
  • 1½ cups seeded and diced zucchini, from 2 small zucchini
  • 1½ cups seeded and diced tomatoes, from 2 to 3 tomatoes
  • ¾ teaspoon salt
  • ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • ½ teaspoon sugar
  • 1 (4-oz) log creamy goat cheese
  • 2 tablespoons fresh chopped basil

Instructions

  1. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-low heat. Add the shallots and cook until soft and translucent, about 2 minutes. Add the garlic and cook 1 minute more. Do not brown.
  2. Add the corn and zucchini and increase the heat to medium. Cook for 2 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the tomatoes, salt, pepper, and sugar and continue to cook for about 2 minutes more, until the tomatoes start to break down. Break the goat cheese into chunks and stir it into the vegetables until creamy and well-combined. Off the heat, stir in the fresh basil along with 3 tablespoons of warm water. Taste and adjust seasoning with more salt and pepper, if necessary. Serve warm.
  3. Make-ahead: This dish can be made a day ahead of time and stored in a covered container in the refrigerator but wait to add the water until reheating.

Nutrition Information

Powered by Edamam

  • Per serving (6 servings)
  • Calories: 167
  • Fat: 7 g
  • Saturated fat: 3 g
  • Carbohydrates: 20 g
  • Sugar: 5 g
  • Fiber: 3 g
  • Protein: 7 g
  • Sodium: 420 mg
  • Cholesterol: 9 mg

This website is written and produced for informational purposes only. I am not a certified nutritionist and the nutritional data on this site has not been evaluated or approved by a nutritionist or the Food and Drug Administration. Nutritional information is offered as a courtesy and should not be construed as a guarantee. The data is calculated through an online nutritional calculator, Edamam.com. Although I do my best to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures should be considered estimates only. Varying factors such as product types or brands purchased, natural fluctuations in fresh produce, and the way ingredients are processed change the effective nutritional information in any given recipe. Furthermore, different online calculators provide different results depending on their own nutrition fact sources and algorithms. To obtain the most accurate nutritional information in a given recipe, you should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe, using your preferred nutrition calculator.

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Comments

  • I made this recipe for a family get together during the summer, and I’m STILL getting compliments months later. (“Remember that corn and zucchini side dish you made? That was SO GOOD!”) What’s even better, it was so easy to make. I have many favorite recipes from Once Upon a Chef, but this ranks in the top 5. Thanks Jenn!

  • Off season, can you use frozen corn?

    • Sure 🙂

  • One of my absolute favorite zucchini Recipes!

  • So good and so easy! Perfect for quick summer night meals when you have lots of veggies around. I switched it up a bit depending on what I had in the house, but the goat cheese ALWAYS made it in. Depending on what veggies you substituted you may not need to add the water. Leftovers worked well for lunch the next day!

  • OMG! I’ve wanted to make this recipe for some time now and finally decided to do so while fresh, local corn, tomatoes and zucchini are available. So glad I did! It’s amazing! I wanted to make it a meal in itself so I added a can of cannellini beans. It added substance without detracting from the taste of the original recipe. Thank you!

  • How much of this recipe could be made ahead and reheated? Thanks!

    • Hi Carol, The whole dish can be made a day ahead of time and stored in the refrigerator. (Just wait to add the water until reheating.) Enjoy!

  • Made this tonight exactly as the recipe but no need to add the water at the end. It is AWESOME!! My husband ate 1/2 of it and raved about each helping! I thought we would have enough for another dinner, but more like one lunch serving!😜 A PERFECT summer dish with fresh tomatoes and corn! Thank you for a delicious recipe!

  • Made this last night following the recipe precisely (a bit unusual at our house) and it was delicious. Looking forward to the leftovers.

  • This was delicious, we used boursin instead of goat’s cheese.

  • probably a silly question, but I’ve not used fresh corn off a cob before, is there a technique to get them off easily? Thanks

    • Hi Kat, You can see how I do it here. Hope that helps!

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