A recipe to enjoy comfort food all year long. Who can’t get on board with that?
Summer meals at my house are all about grilling, vegetables from our garden and fresh fruit, and enjoying this weather while we can. Don’t get me wrong, I love it – but I’ve been craving Italian lately. Spaghetti, Alfredo, lasagna, all of it. So I found this Italian ground beef zucchini boat recipe to satisfy my craving, without feeling like I went carb crazy. My mom and I tweaked the recipes we found a bit, creating our own recipe for our tastes and nutritional preferences.
We have zucchini growing out of our ears over here, and huge zucchinis at that. The recipe calls for four medium zucchinis, but two large zucchinis were enough for a family of four and leftovers. To start, cut your zucchini in half, and slice just enough off of one side so it lays flat. Scoop out the seeds and pulp, keeping the pulp to add into the meat mixture later.
Next up, cooking the meat. We used ground beef, onion, garlic, salt, pepper, and my grandma’s homemade spaghetti sauce. If you’re not as lucky as I am to have a grandma that’s a whiz at canning and cooking, you can add mushrooms and chopped bell peppers to store-bought sauce to add texture and flavor. After cooking your meat mixture, add to hollowed out zucchini, sprinkle cheese on top, and pop them in the oven. We cooked ours at 350 for 35 minutes, but our zucchini were monstrous. If you aren’t using gigantic zucchini, they will probably only need to be cooked for 25-30 minutes.
We paired our zucchini boats with a side salad, but you could pair with a French bread as well. I used a strawberry poppy seed dressing to keep a little touch of summer to this meal. When it comes to salad dressings, look for a Greek yogurt based dressing like the Opa brand. We loved this new recipe and it definitely filled my spaghetti craving, at only 222 calories per serving! Our one critique though – we should’ve seasoned the zucchini separately with olive oil, salt and pepper to give it a little more flavor.
All in all, this was a great recipe and easy way to sneak more vegetables into your diet. It was also fun to add our own twist, favorite seasonings, and be able to use what we had grown in our own garden. See the full recipe below to enjoy with your own family!
Ingredients:
4 medium zucchini
1 pound ground beef
½ cup chopped onion
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup marinara sauce
1 large egg, beaten
1 cup seasoned bread crumbs (or crushed croutons)
Salt and Pepper, to taste
1 cup parmesan cheese
2 cloves of garlic
Directions:
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