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
- 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.
- Place the zucchini halves on a microwave safe plate and cover with a damp paper towel. Microwave on high for 1 minute.
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- 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.
- 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.
- Add sausage and tomatoes to the pan and mix well. Continue to heat for about 1 minute. Remove from heat and mix in breadcrumbs.
- Lay zucchini halves, cut side up, in a glass baking pan. Stuff the zucchini halves with the sausage mixture.
- Top each stuffed zucchini half with marinara sauce and freshly grated Parmesan cheese.
- Bake for 30 minutes at 400 degrees.
