Southern Yellow Fried Squash Recipe

A plate of crispy golden fried squash with a bowl of dipping sauce.

This Southern Fried Squash is crispy, golden, and totally craveable. Tender yellow squash rounds get a seasoned cornmeal crust and fry up in minutes for the ultimate summer side dish.

Course Side Dish

Cuisine Southern

Keyword Fried Squash

Prep Time 20

Cook Time 4

Total Time 24

Servings servings

Calories 187kcal

Author Jason Decker

Ingredients

1 pound yellow squash
1 cup all-purpose flour divided
2 tablespoons yellow cornmeal
2 teaspoons seasoned salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 large egg well beaten
oil for frying

Instructions

Slice the fresh squash into rounds about 1/4th of an inch thick, I like to use a mandolin for this if available and set it aside.
In a medium-sized shallow dish, stir together the flour, cornmeal, seasoned salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder.
In a second medium-sized shallow bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, egg, and 1 tablespoon of the flour mixture.
Heat about ½ inch of oil in a heavy bottom cast iron skillet until the temperature reaches 350 degrees f.
Take a round of squash and dip it in the egg mixture; let the excess drip back into the bowl.
Place it into the flour mixture and coat it on both sides. Shake off the excess flour.
Carefully add breaded squash slices to the hot oil, and fry until lightly golden brown on both sides, flipping a few times to brown evenly, about 4 minutes total.
Place it on paper towels to absorb excess oil, then immediately place it on a wire rack over a baking sheet in a single layer.
Repeat with all of the squash in small batches. Serve with your favorite dipping sauce.

Notes

Oil for frying is not calculated in nutrition. Nutrition will vary since all of the buttermilk mixture and all of the cornmeal mixture will not be used.

This makes a large batch, but you can easily double it to feed more or halve the recipe as needed.
Tons of custom seasoning options, see my tips above on that.
This freezes well, see my tips above on how to store.
This method will work with zucchini as well.

Nutrition