Sausage Stuffed Zucchini Boats

Sausage stuffed zucchini boats is a low carb, savory dinner that is an alternative to your traditional meat sauce. Quick meal that you can pull from the freezer and serve with fresh veggies when you are ready.

Don’t Rock The Boat

As I always mention, I try to make eating healthy easier. I tried these zucchini boats once, and was pleasantly surprised. I tried them a second time, and knew this one was definitely worth sharing. That is mostly because I only had to cook once.

The sausage stuffing from this recipe came from my tried and true sausage pasta sans noodles. There is a reason I title that recipe, Simple Sausage Pasta For When You Are Too Tired To Cook. I used my same tried and true ingredients. I knew it was good, so I stuck with it. Don’t try and fix something that isn’t broken, right?

I’ve seen several variations of this recipe on Pinterest, but had to put my own spin on it.

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Knowing The Ropes

The ingredients for this recipe are quite simple, and no special skills are required. I used my favorite pre-made red sauce by Rao’s along with ground Italian sausage. You can through in some diced onion and minced garlic to the mix, but it is not really necessary.

I did add a can of sliced mushrooms to mine, because I always try to add a little extra veggie when I can. For toppings, whatever your heart desires. I topped mine with mozzarella cheese, no questions asked. I also highly recommend some fresh basil and red pepper flakes.

All Hands On Deck

…Will love this recipe, but it is really so easy any one person can make it. I first browned the sausage in a skillet and drained the grease before adding in my red sauce. Sorry, but I honestly can’t remember if I added in coconut cream as I typically do in my sausage pasta recipe. If you to make the stuffing creamier and less acidic, you can always add coconut or heavy cream to the mix.

After combining the meat and sauce, I let it simmer together for all of the flavors to meld. I then started on the zucchini. First, I cut them in half length wise and then scooped out the inside with a melon scooper. I 100% recommend the melon scooper over a spoon if you have one available. I scooped out all of the insides, still leave a small border around the zucchini. It looked quite like a canoe.

You unfortunately do lose a lot of zucchini when scooping on the insides. My solution is to either add the zucchini into the sauce and give it some time to cook down, or bread them and make some air fried zucchini balls, similar to my zucchini fries.

No Need To Abandon Ship

Once everything is ready to go, fill up the boats with your sausage stuffing and don’t be shy. Load those bad boys up. You then going to bake them in the oven for about 25 minutes. If you wish, take them out about 5 minutes early and top with cheese before letting them finish cooking.

You can actually split this recipe in two. I filled about 3 zucchini (6 boats) with half of the mixture. The other half, I froze to save for a rainy day. I figured I could either boil some pasta to serve with the remainder, or make more boats. I was surprised Chance actually like it so much, I made more boats!

It was super easy the next time around. No cooking was involved, just had to slice and dice my zucchini before throwing it all in the oven.

Freezer Tip: Freeze your leftovers in a gallon Ziploc bag and spread it out very thin. This takes up less space in the freezer, and allows it to defrost much quicker!

Shiver Me Timbers

This is really two meals in one! Make it 3 if you decide to take your boats to Mexico and stuff them with my stuffed pepper filling. Don’t be afraid to branch out and be creative!