Stuffed Zucchini

Tonight I made myself some stuffed zucchini for dinner. It's a very tasty and filling meal packed with veggies and meat. Have it with a side salad or a slice of bread.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 of a VERY large zucchini
• 1 jar of you favorite pasta sauce

Stuffed Zucchini

Meat Filling:

• 1 lb ground beef
• 1/3 cup chopped red bell pepper
• 1/3 cup chopped green bell pepper
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 1/4 cup diced tomato
• 1 tbsp Italian seasoning
• 1 tbsp dried parsley
• 2 tbsp minced garlic
• 1/4 tsp paprika
• 1/2 tbsp granulated garlic
• salt and pepper to taste

Cheese Topping:

• 1 1/2 cups shredded cheese
• 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese

Prep:

Prepping the zucchini.

I peeled and cut my zucchini in half at the middle and then split the half down the middle length wise. Then cleaned out the insides so I would have a nice bowl. With zucchinis this size they can get a woody flavor and the seeds are the size of ones you would find in a pumpkin. So peeling them and taking out the seeds is the best idea.

After I finished prepping the zucchini, I chopped the peppers, onion and tomato into bite sized pieces and set them aside so they could go into the meat filling. 

Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees.

Boil Zucchini:

After prepping your zucchini boil the halves that you cleaned out for about 10 minutes or until a fork just barely goes into them. This will take the bake time down to about half.

Meat filling in the making.

Making the meat filling: 

While the zucchini is boiling it's time to make the meat filling. Add your ground beef to a skillet, break it into small chunks and cook that for about 5 minutes on medium heat. You can now either pour out the grease or leave it. I chose to just leave it. Now add the bell peppers, onion and dried spices. Let those cook for another 3-4 minutes and then add the minced garlic and tomato. If you want you can add about a 1/4 of the pasta sauce to the pan. Cook this another 3 minutes or until the onions start turning soft. Add a pinch of salt and pepper to taste. 

Assembly:

Pour another 1/4 of the pasta sauce into the bottom of your baking pan. This will help keep the bottom of the zucchini moist and make a nice sauce. Then add the boiled zucchini. Now spoon your meat mixture inside your zucchini and some along the edges of the pan.

Sprinkle a little Parmesan cheese over the top. Then add the rest of your pasta sauce. Be sure to cover the whole zucchini. Top it all off with the rest or more of the Parmesan cheese and the shredded cheese.

To keep your oven clean place the baking pan on a foil lined cookie sheet and place everything in the oven. Bake it for about 20 minutes or until the sauce on the bottom of the pan starts to bubble. You can now either take it out or put the oven on broil to get the cheese a little crispy. If you do the broil make sure to watch it because it could burn. It shouldn't take more than a 2 minutes on broil to crisp the cheese.

Once it's done take it out of the oven and let it cool.

After it's cooled, cut it and enjoy. No knifes needed with this meal because pre-cooking the zucchini made it nice and soft. Plus cooking the meat filling before adding it to the zucchini ensures that it's cooked fully.

Time to eat!