Forget Bananas: This Vegetable Is A Potassium-Rich Summer Classic

Potassium has important benefits for your body, including maintaining nerve function, and its regulation of heart contractions can even help lower blood pressure. Conventional wisdom has touted bananas as the quintessential source of potassium, but there is a vegetable that is in season during the summer that has just as much of the mineral, and is even more versatile. Plenty of vegetables are among the foods highest in potassium, but the one that really steals the show is zucchini.

Though zucchini is technically a fruit, the culinary world largely regards it as a veggie. One cup of this raw veg has 324mg of potassium, about 7% of your daily recommended amount, and 80% of what a whole banana has. However, being mostly water, you can cook zucchini down, and one cup will end up even more concentrated, with 10% of what you need daily, even more than a banana. It does all this without the sugar of bananas and with far fewer calories as well.

And that potassium is far from zucchini's only nutritional upside. One cooked cup has 26% of your daily vitamin C, and plenty of vitamin A as well. It's high in antioxidants and contains solid amounts of other vitamins and minerals, including iron, copper, calcium, zinc, and various types of vitamin B.

Zucchini's mildly sweet flavor fits into plenty of dishes, and it even works as a great base for salads. While you might typically think of using it sliced or cubed, one of the best summer preparations for zucchini (when fresh local options will be at their best) is shaved for a summer squash salad. With just a peeler, you can produce long ribbons of zucchini that have a great crunch. They are wonderful for a simple side salad with dinner, dressed up with bright summer flavors like fresh herbs, lemon dressings, and crumbled cheeses. If you prefer your zucchini cooked, you can turn the ribbons into a replacement for lasagna noodles in a baked pasta.

Speaking of noodles, zucchini is also perfect for a light pasta dish. Pan frying zucchini in olive oil produces a result that is both crispy and creamy, concentrating its sweetness and adding extra depth from the browning. Thin-sliced half-moons of zucchini are also a nice addition to a pasta salad.

Finally, zucchini is also a classic vegetable to cook on the most summery of heat-sources: the grill. Simply halving a zucchini lengthwise and dressing it up lightly with some olive oil, salt, and pepper will produce a tender, flavorful green side for all those heavy meats. There are far more great zucchini recipes than can be listed here, including using them in baked goods like scones, but you get the point. When it's summer, ditch the banana for your easy potassium fix and load up on zucchini instead.