Basic Summer Cooking – Quick Courgette Ratatouille Recipe

Last Updated on January 4, 2026

Courgette Ratatouille with Summer Savoury:

This ratatouille recipe is truly an early summer dish – when the first vine-ripened tomatoes are at their ripest and young, fresh courgettes are available. Very simple to make, it keeps well in the fridge for three or four days and works well cold with a salad or can be warmed up to serve with lamb, chicken, or white fish.

Traditionally, ratatouille is a mixture of aubergine, courgette, onions, and tomatoes cooked with a whole host of other vegetables and herbs sometimes added. My early summer ratatouille uses shallots for extra sweetness and omits the aubergine, simply so that the dish can be cooked quickly and isn’t too expensive. Dicing all the vegetables helps too, and at this time of the year, I want to let the flavours of spring linger on. Later in the summer, I’ll make a more traditional version with slices of courgettes and aubergine slowly stewed with tomatoes and olive oil, but I like the freshness and lightness of this version.

The summer savoury was an experiment that worked rather well here. I’ve made this with fresh oregano in the past, or even with thyme. But I’m in the process of restocking my herb garden and had been looking out for tarragon. There was none at the Garden Centre, only something that was unlabelled. With a slightly bitter, citrussy taste, I knew straight away that it wasn’t tarragon, though it looks similar…

I came home from a recent trip to the Rhone Valley fired up with enthusiasm for foraged food and fresh herbs. More of that later…one edible flower that is available pretty much everywhere is the mallow. It’s a pretty purple flower with an edible seed pod that my mother used to call ‘fairy cheese’ because it resembles a tiny Babybel (without the red wax). If, like me, you are a Townie, this is something you should be able to find on any bit of waste ground. Just make sure you pick the flowers from somewhere that is away from dog walkers…and that you wash anything you choose very well! I used my handful of mallow flowers to decorate the plate of pan-fried hake, served with lemon, on a bed of courgette ratatouille, as shown in the top picture. And it was there too that I worked out what my mystery pot of herbs was, as we wandered through the village picking up sprigs of all sorts of wild herbs. And traditional ratatouille also comes from the area we were visiting, the Occitan, Provence, and Nice. The word “ratatouille” comes from Occitan “ratatolha,” and the recipe originates from Occitan cuisine. So I guess I was already pining to return.

Print Recipe

Courgette Ratatouille with Summer Savoury

Easy Summer Ratatouille with Courgette or Zucchini – a simple and quick Ratatouille that is perfect for summer

Prep Time5 minutes mins

Cook Time20 minutes mins

Total Time25 minutes mins

Course: Lunch, Main Course, Side Dish

Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 1 Medium Courgette Zucchini if you are in the US
• 3 Medium Vine Tomatoes
• 2 Banana Shallots
• 2 cloves Garlic
• 1 handful Summer Savoury you can use fresh oregano or thyme if savoury is not available
• 1 tablespoon Olive Oil
• 2 teaspoons Balsamic Vinegar Good Quality

Instructions

• Peel and chop the shallots and crush the garlic. Dice the tomatoes and courgette into 1/2 cm cubes. Pull the savoury leaves off the stalks and discard the stalks.
• Warm the oil in a heavy-based pan and add the shallots. Cook for 4-5 minutes before adding in the crushed garlic. Continue to cook for 5 minutes over a low to medium heat, stirring as necessary
• Add the diced courgette and cook for a further 3-5 minutes till it starts to change colour.
• Add the tomato, season with salt and pepper and cook for 5-10 minutes, stirring frequently to make sure nothing is burning.
• Stir in the balsamic vinegar and most of the summer savoury. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary. If your tomatoes are not ripe enough you may need to add a teaspoon of sugar at this stage. Stir through until completely mixed in. Garnish with a few more savoury leaves.

To recreate my fish dish exactly, you simply need a good fillet of hake or cod (mine comes from John at Delish Fish), a little salt, and an extra tablespoon of olive oil. About an hour before you want to eat, sprinkle the fish with salt to drain out any additional liquid. Then, five minutes before the ratatouille is ready, heat up the oil in a small heavy-bottomed frying pan, rinse the fish, and pat dry with a clean tea towel or kitchen paper. Pop it ‘service side down’ (e.g., with the skin on top) for a minute, then flip it over, turn the heat right down, and cook till you can just see the proteins rising to the top of the fish and it is opaque all the way through. Pop the fish on top of a bed of ratatouille and garnish with fresh herbs and a lemon quarter. This makes a good low-calorie dish if you happen to be following the 5:2 diet like me or any other kind of diet, for that matter.

One thing this dish depends on is a really good balsamic vinegar. I was recently sent a couple of bottles of Due Vittorie, Italy’s favourite IGP Balsamic Vinegar, to sample. It’s a rich, sweet balsamic vinegar that has been produced in Modena, Italy, since the Middle Ages and is now renowned worldwide. For this recipe, I used just a couple of teaspoons of Oro, which can be purchased through Ocado for £9.99 per bottle. It’s quite different from the thin, sharp vinegar you might have tried already. If you don’t have a good Balsamic, I’d suggest adding a tablespoon of dry wine instead, because anything too strong will completely overwhelm the delicate early summer vegetables.

The Courgette Ratatouille is a great ‘cooking from scratch’ dish for a single household. Although it yields enough for two or three meals, it cooks quickly, keeps well, and can be used in several ways. Try a spoonful on top of a jacket potato, topped with grated cheese, and pop it in the oven for a few minutes. Or eat it cold. You can even use the mixture to make a delicious omelette filling.

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