There is no difference in the vegetable itself: zucchini is the American English name and courgette is the British English name for the same long green summer squash. If a recipe from a US site calls for zucchini and one from a UK site calls for courgette, they mean the same ingredient.
The core difference
Zucchini and courgette name the same squash; the difference is only which side of the Atlantic is talking.
- zucchini — the American English name for the green summer squash: She sliced the zucchini and grilled it with olive oil.
- courgette — the British English name for the same squash: Top the tart with thin slices of courgette before baking.
How to tell them apart
You cannot tell zucchini and courgette apart on the chopping board, because they are the same vegetable. The only clue is the dialect of the person speaking: zucchini comes from Italian, where it is the plural of zucchino, a “little squash,” while courgette is borrowed from French, a diminutive of courge, meaning marrow or squash.
The mix-up shows up mostly in recipes and shopping lists that cross the Atlantic: an American cookbook will list zucchini, a British one will list courgette, and a UK supermarket will simply shelve it as courgette even though many shoppers also recognise the word zucchini.
