Italian Stuffed Zucchini

Yummy yummy! I love stuffed zucchini and the Italian sausage in these is perfect.  It gives a nice little bit of smokey flavor but it doesn’t overpower the veggies.  Not the cleanest dish ever, but there are a bunch of veggies and it did make the guys at work jealous when I brought in leftovers for lunch 🙂

I used Italian chicken sausage but you could use turkey, spicy, sweet or whatever flavor sausage you want.  I wanted to use Italian sausage and this was the only one I could find in the store so I went for it.  It has little spots of cheese inside! Living on the edge, I know…

I used canned tomatoes in this but you could use fresh if you want.  Maybe stew them a little bit first if you go for fresh.

Add whatever cheese you want to on top, I used freshly grated parmigiano reggiano but Mozzarella would be perfect too.

Italian Stuffed Zucchini
Makes 4 servings


Ingredients:

• 2 medium zucchinis
• 8 oz Italian chicken sausage
• 1/4 cup yellow onion, diced
• 1 medium yellow bell pepper
• 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 14 oz can low sodium Italian diced tomatoes
• 1/4 cup whole wheat Italian breadcrumbs
• 3/4 cup marinara sauce
• 1/2 tsp oregano
• 1/2 tsp parsley
• Freshly grated Parmesan cheese 

1. Cut the zucchinis in half length-wise and trim the ends.  Hollow out the zucchinis with a spoon, making sure to leave at least 1/4 inch thickness.
2. Place the zucchini halves on a microwave safe plate and cover with a damp paper towel.  Microwave on high for 1 minute.
3. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
4. Remove casings from sausage and break the sausage apart into small pieces.  Brown sausage in a large non-stick pan over medium-high heat.  Set sausage aside.
5. Spray the non-stick pan with non-stick cooking spray.  Add onion, bell pepper, garlic, oregano and parsley and saute until fragrant, 2-3 minutes.
6. Add sausage and tomatoes to the pan and mix well.  Continue to heat for about 1 minute.  Remove from heat and mix in breadcrumbs.  
7. Lay zucchini halves, cut side up, in a glass baking pan.  Stuff the zucchini halves with the sausage mixture.
8. Top each stuffed zucchini half with marinara sauce and freshly grated Parmesan cheese.
9. Bake for 30 minutes at 400 degrees.