With a savory sausage and mushroom filling layered over fresh zucchini, topped with cheese, and baked until bubbly, these stuffed zucchini boats are a healthy and delicious way to use up your garden-fresh zucchini.
This post contains affiliate links, which means I make a small commission at no extra cost to you. See my full affiliate link disclosure here.
Summertime is still in full swing, and the garden is flourishing.
We’re now at the point, though, where we need to find as many different ways as possible to use the garden’s bounty. Zucchini in particular. It’s a great problem to have!
We always hit this point of harvesting so many zucchini that we look for as many ways as possible to add them into the menu.
I’ll use them to bake sourdough zucchini bread or sourdough chocolate zucchini muffins, or we’ll enjoy them in an easy zucchini frittata served with fluffy sourdough biscuits.
And yet we’re still giving away baskets full of zucchini in hopes of saving the vegetables from waste.
Maybe I just planted too many? And unfortunately, preserving zucchini isn’t my favorite – we prefer to eat them fresh.
So while it’s one of the more unconventional zucchini recipes, these easy stuffed zucchini boats are one of our favorite ways to make this squash the star of dinner. Serve them with a side of buttered sourdough dinner rolls to complete the meal.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
Full of fresh flavors: Stuffed with fresh zucchini, crisp and savory sausage, sautéed veggies, and melty cheese, it might be healthy, but it’s also a flavorful comfort food.
A great way to use produce: When zucchini abound, this is a perfect way to put them to use and avoid wasting good food.
Simple and customizable: Made with basic ingredients, this zucchini recipe is simple to make and sure to please. You can easily add your touch with different veggies like sweet peppers or shallots, fresh herbs like oregano or basil, your choice of cheese, and additional seasonings, such as garlic powder, ground red pepper, or sage.
Ingredients
Zucchini: Garden fresh is the best, but you can also grab some zucchini from your local store. Larger zucchini work best, giving you more room for the filling.
Sausage: I like to use ground pork or Italian sausage for this recipe.
Mozzarella: This is a great melting cheese. Keep in mind that a higher-fat content cheese, like whole milk mozzarella, melts better than the low-fat alternative. Both are great choices. You could also use monterey jack, pepper jack, gouda, or gruyere.
Veggies: Chopped onions and mushrooms are in this base, but you could try adding diced bell peppers, chopped spinach leaves, or even quartered cherry tomatoes.
A full ingredient list with exact amounts can be found in the recipe card below.
How to Make Stuffed Zucchini Boats
Step 1: Preheat oven to 400°F. Slice the zucchini in half, then scoop out the insides and add them to a medium cast iron skillet.
Step 2: Place the hollowed-out zucchini boats in a baking dish, drizzle with oil, and sprinkle with salt. Bake for 20 minutes.
Step 3: While they bake, add the mushrooms and onions to the skillet with the zucchini. Drizzle with olive oil and cook over medium heat until soft, stirring frequently. In another skillet, brown the sausage until cooked through. Add the veggies in with the meat and stir to combine.
Step 4: Scoop the meat and veggie mixture into the partially-baked zucchini halves.
Step 5: Top with mozzarella cheese, and bake at 400° until the cheese is melted – about 8 minutes.
Step 6: Serve warm! They are especially delicious with fresh tomatoes diced on top. They can be served as a complete meal, or you can add some pasta, rice, or sourdough bread as a side dish.
Tips
- This recipe works really well for those overgrown zucchini that you missed.
- Switch up the sausage for spicy sausage, bacon, or ground beef.
- Top with some fermented jalapeños after baking for a nice kick.
- Using a cast iron skillet makes life so much easier. You can have multiple going at the same time, and then clean-up is a breeze. It is an essential tool in our farmhouse kitchen.
- You can substitute zucchini for yellow squash if that is what you have on hand.
Recipe FAQ
Store in the refrigerator for up to 3-4 days in an airtight container. Reheat at 400° until hot. I always prefer baking over microwaving for better texture and quality.
With large zucchini, the seeds tend to also be large and unappetizing to chew. In this case, it’s a good idea to scrape out some of the seeds before cooking.
Yes! Since zucchini has a nice soft skin that is full of nutrients, it is great for eating.
Supposedly you can, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Zucchini tends to lose its pleasant texture, becoming very mushy and unappealing after freezing.
Every gardener experiences overgrown zucchini at some point, but hope is not lost. Those large veggies can be used in all kinds of recipes, like sourdough chocolate zucchini muffins, grain-free zucchini lasagna, and sourdough zucchini bread.
More Recipes from the Farmhouse
- One Skillet Creamy Peach Chicken
- The Best Shepherd’s Pie From Scratch
- Meatball Sub Recipe
- Pumpkin Chipotle Spaghetti Squash with Homemade Meatballs
- Tomato Soup From Scratch
- Easy Orange Chicken – From Scratch
- Easy Zucchini Lasagna Recipe (Not Watery)
If you try this recipe and love it, I would love it if you could come back and give it 5 stars! Tag me on Instagram @farmhouseonboone.
Sausage Zucchini Boats
Equipment
Ingredients
Roasted Zucchini:
- 2-3 medium zucchini
- 1 teaspoon salt
- Olive oil
Filling:
- 6 mushrooms, diced
- ½ red onion, diced
- Olive oil
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 pound ground sausage
- 1 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°F.
- Slice zucchini in half.
- Scoop out the insides and add to a medium cast iron skillet.
- Place the hollowed-out zucchini boats in a baking dish, drizzle with oil, and sprinkle with salt.
- Bake for 20 minutes.
- Meanwhile, add the mushrooms and onions to the skillet with the zucchini insides. Drizzle with olive oil and cook over medium heat until soft, stirring frequently.
- In another skillet, brown ground sausage until cooked through. Add the veggies in with the meat, and stir to combine.
- Place the meat and veggie mixture in the partially baked zucchini boats, top with mozzarella cheese, and bake at 400° until the cheese is melted. About 8 minutes.
- Top with fresh herbs or fresh tomatoes if desired!
Notes
- Top with freshly diced tomatoes or herbs, especially in the summer!
- Make sure the filling doesn’t have a lot of moisture. I recommend either cooking it off or removing some of the liquid.
- Switch up the sausage for spicy sausage, bacon, or ground beef.
- Top with some fermented jalapeños after baking for a nice kick.
- Using a cast iron skillet makes life so much easier. You can have multiple going at the same time, and then clean-up is a breeze. It is an essential tool in our farmhouse kitchen.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
These were so easy and fun to make! Great way to use up extra zucchini and the kids loved having a boat! These are so easily customizable and I used lots of extras we had in our garden.
Thank you for another great recipe! I loved being able to listen to you in Coeur d’alene!
I’m 77 and I made the best sourdough bread that I’ve ever made in my life thank you so much Leasa for the recipe
Been making this for months now thanks! I omit the mushroom but its amazing recipe
Have you ever tried shredding the zucchini and throwing it in the freezer raw? This is something I have done for quite a few years already. In the winter I will use the shredded zucchini in soup or make zucchini bars or loaf with it. I measure it out in portion size before I put it in the freezer so that I don’t have to measure it after I thaw it
Tanya, I have also frozen shredded zucchini, works good although a little watery thawed.
this was delicious! I used hamburger meat instead of pork because that’s what I had. very easy and quick to make. will be making this again!