| For longer-cooking dishes like ragouts, braises, and stews, you can cut the zucchini into rounds of any thickness. The longer the cooking, the thicker the slices. For full rounds, cut off the top and very bottom of the zucchini, then slice crosswise. |  |
| For quicker-cooking dishes, and when you want bite-size pieces, cut the zucchini into half or quarter-rounds. After cutting off the top and bottom, cut the zucchini in half lengthwise. Some zucchini are curved, making it difficult to make two even-sized halves. When deciding where to make the cut, rotate the whole zucchini until it looks straight, then slice. |  |
| To finish the half rounds, slice the zucchini crosswise. For dishes where the zucchini plays a starring role, cut the rounds on the bias (at an angle). |  |
| To make quarter-rounds, cut the lengthwise halves in half again lengthwise. |  |
| Then slice the quarters crosswise to make quarter-rounds of any thickness. Like with whole and half-rounds, you can cut these on the bias for the sake of appearance. |  |
Here are three common ways to slice a zucchini. The type of cut you use will vary depending on the size zucchini you have. A half-round from a medium zucchini and a full-round from a small one might be about the same size. Once you have this technique down, you can vary the cuts as you need to. Here, we happen to be prepping a medium zucchini (though we think the small ones usually taste best).
