Pepperoni Stuffed Zucchini
One of our favorite fall dishes, it is a great combination of sweet and salty flavors -- and very easy to make.
One of our favorite fall dishes, it is a great combination of sweet and salty flavors -- and very easy to make.
We made this recipe as printed only before adding the zucchini and onions into the zucchini boats, sprinked the boat with an Italian blend of cheese, added some Italian seasoning to the zucchini and onion mixture and filled the boat. Then sprinkled more cheese on top. It was delicious.
Read MoreThis was ok as written but, with some tweaking, I think it could be really good. First of all, I thought the pepperoni was really bland; some good-quality salty proscuitto would have been better. Some fresh herbs wouldn't have done any harm either. Finally, if you are going to serve it as I did, alongside a sauceless piece of meat, I think a rich creamy Parmesan sauce would be wonderful. I think I'll fiddle around with this, and see what I can do.
Read MoreThis was ok as written but, with some tweaking, I think it could be really good. First of all, I thought the pepperoni was really bland; some good-quality salty proscuitto would have been better. Some fresh herbs wouldn't have done any harm either. Finally, if you are going to serve it as I did, alongside a sauceless piece of meat, I think a rich creamy Parmesan sauce would be wonderful. I think I'll fiddle around with this, and see what I can do.
We made this recipe as printed only before adding the zucchini and onions into the zucchini boats, sprinked the boat with an Italian blend of cheese, added some Italian seasoning to the zucchini and onion mixture and filled the boat. Then sprinkled more cheese on top. It was delicious.
This was good however, as usual, I modded it to my tastes therefore 4 stars. I microwaved the zucchini prior to cutting for an easier time with that. After scooping out the inside, I placed the boats on a cookie sheet sprayed with Pam and then covered them in garlic salt. (Should have patted dry with a paper towel...) I mixed the zucchini and diced onion with the pepperoni and a TON of garlic salt as I love it. Also salt and peppered it. I layed down pizza sauce and some cheddar (all I had) prior to filling back up the boats. When loaded, sprinkled with salt, pepper, and more cheddar. They were DELICIOUS...thanks for this healthy "pizza".
I made this twice already and we love it! I used tiny cubed salami since we have a 2-year old and a 9-month old and pepperoni would've been too spicy. I also used sliced green onion instead of the white onion and some feta cheese. I put a couple of dots of cream cheese on the bottom of the zucchini boats before adding the remaining ingredients and it was so good and creamy! My kids absolutely loved it - especially the mozarella on top. My nine-month old ate nearly an entire half by himself! We had guests over and I made it again, and that's all they would talk about. I used 8 zucchinis since our garden was overflowing with them, and I will definitely make this again!!!
I liked this alot. They make a great lunch or slice them in 1" slices after baking and serve as appetizers. I sauted the onions pepperoni and zucchini "insides" with salt and pepper. I do recommend salt and peppering the inside of the zucchini before stuffing so that gets some flavor as well. I topped it off with some freshly grated parmasian and baked in the toaster oven.
We found this recipe intriguing. However, it did indeed need some "tweaking". We added butter to saute the veggies, peeled and chopped the zucchini and added salsa & a Mexican cheese blend. We then baked it in a casserole dish instead of the shells. It turned out so well that we've made large batches and frozen it.
This was the first time in my life I ate zucchini and loved it! My husband and 7yr old also raved. I added a smear of cream cheese to the bottom of the boats before putting the fillings in, as someone else suggested doing. I used a grapefruit spoon to scoop out the middles. On the bigger squash I mistakenly left too much rind - make sure you scoop them as thin as you can. This recipe did take me closer to 25 min to prep, but that's probably because it was my first time trying to stuff a zucchini! Great recipe I'll be buying a lot more zucchini in my weekly trips to the farmers market!
I think I'll need to either pre-cook the zucchini "boats" first or adjust the cook time next time because mine came out a little under cooked. But my husband really liked it. We eat a ton of zucchini and I'll definitely try this again.
I know you can't rate a recipe if you change it alot, but I made this with turkey kielbasa chopped small, and it was really great! Even my two and four-year olds liked it.
I used turkey peppersoni and although I added fresh garlic, cayenne, and Italian seasonings, I still think it was missing something...more cheese or even cream cheese perhaps? I liked the pepperoni with the zucchini but I won't be craving this recipe as written. I also used a melon baller to scoop out the center of the zucchinis; very easy.
I will not rate a recipe unless I first make it as written. It is excellent, easy and tasty. I might change it a bit with some herbs and seasonings added to the zucchini before everything else is added, but this is a great side dish.
This was awful!! I even tweaked it a bit for more flavor and it was still terrible. I'm sorry.
I took the basics of this recipe, and really tweeked it a lot. I did use some pepperoni, but also used sweet itaian sausage, added mushrooms, garlic, and red bell pepper. Also, after scooping the meat of the zucchini out, I put a layer of grated mozarella inside the skins, then added the remaining ingredients. This gave the sausage, pepperoni, and the rest of the fillng something to grab on to. I finished by topping with fresh romano cheese.
I made this for dinner last night and loved it!! I did jazz it up a bit by adding minced garlic, italian seasoning and cooking the mixture in EVOO. I also salt and peppered the boats and added an italian blend cheese to the boats before adding the mixture and also topped with additional cheese. I served it with the sliced tomatoes with fresh herb dressing from this sight. Will definetely make again!
i added pasta sauce,tomatoes and a bit of cracked red peppers, it was fantastic!
Eh, I am starting to think I am just not a zucchini person. I went ahead and added some salt and pepper while cooking the filling, and also added some to the zucchini shells before cooking. While the filling was pretty tasty, I couldn't stand the raw-ish taste of the shell. On to another low-carb side!
It's difficult to rate this recipe as I made some changes, not intentional but because of what I had. First I used a super large zucchini, and had about 1 1/2 c of ricotta I had to use up so it didn't get tossed, so I mixed that in also. Since the zuke was so big, I used a 9x13 glass dish and added about 1 c of water and covered. This baked about 40-45 mins, but I uncovered the last 5 and broiled. It turned out very good but I felt it lacked something, so I topped this with marinara sauce before serving and that did it! Very good & simple. Next time I plan to use some fresh minced garlic also. Thanks for sharing :)
Maybe this would work better if I had larger zucchinis (the ones in the store were too small to really scoop out). The cheese also thickened very soon after plating, so that when you went to eat it was already cooling and lost the "cheesy-ness."
My husband really liked these. I used Italian sausage instead of the pepperoni, and added a little marinara sauce.
Based on some of the other reviewers' suggestions, I made the following changes: I smeared a little cream cheese on the bottom of the zucchini boats, then put the sliced pepperoni in, then the skillet mix. In the skillet mix, I used green onion instead of white, and I added some feta cheese. Overall it's pretty good but might need just a tad bit of something else to give more flavor. Thanks for a great base recipe!
This was FANTASTIC!! Even my 6 year old, who has an aversion to all squash, LOVED it!! I tweaked it a bit after reading other reviews and it turned out perfect. I pre-baked the shells for about 10 min while I prepared the filling. After sauteing the zucchini, onion, and pepperoni (I added minced garlic & Italian seasoning), I mixed in about 1/4 cup dry bread crumbs. I coated shells with cream cheese & sprinkled with fresh grated Parmesan before filling. I sprinkled feta crumbles and some more Parmesan on top of filling, baked 12 min and then broiled a quick 2 min to get a bit of crunch on top. They were absolutely delicious...definitely going to make this again...SOON!!
We picked the garden today and had an overwhelming amount of zucchini so I was looking for something different. I made this just for myself for lunch. I took other reviews and baked my zucchini in the oven for about 20 minutes while I prepared a sauce. I satueed onion and garlic on the stove, threw in the scooped out zucchini, threw in a few cherry tomatoes, pepperoni, splash of red wine, salt/pepper/garlic powder/italian seasoning/cayenne and a 8 oz can of tomato sauce. I let this reduce down and added it to the zucchini after 20 minutes. I topped it all with mozzarella, parmesan and Progresso italian bread crumbs. This turned out great but I think I would rather it without the pepperoni. Maybe prosucitto like another user suggested or shredded chicken or even italian sausage. This is a great recipe but just needs a little more seasoning and some sauce. This is going in my recipe box in my kitchen labeled as zucchini parmesan.
My zucchini were quite large but I kept the "filling" ingredients the same. I used turkey pepperoni and I did add a little basil and oregano to the "filling" ingredients. I served this with leftover plain-no-sauce BBQ chicken and homemade marinara sauce (The Best Marinara Sauce) also from this site. I really enjoyed this, though my family was kind of quiet about it. I might make this again just for me, for lunches during the week. With two large zucchini and the filling the same, this served four. I think this could work with italian sausage, too.
These were quite delicious with a few minor modications. I seasoned the hollowed out zucchini with salt, pepper and garlic powder. While cooking the filling I also added some seasoning. I topped them with parmesan and mozzarella and served them on a bed of spaghetti with marinara sauce. With these few modifications they will be a definite keeper in our house.
This made for a delicious dinner! I microwaved each small zucchini before cutting them and baked the shells for 10 minutes with pam and garlic salt. I ended up putting the sauteed onions and zucchini in the blender after cooking to really smooth the mixture out. I mixed in half a cup of mozzarella to the blended mixture and filled the shells. I topped them with some hard salami I cooked with a little olive oil to make the salami crunchy and also sprinkled on some parmesan.
I did not like this one bit. I used high quality, low fat pepperoni & cheeses, but it still turned out very greasy. This recipe requires some major tweaking before I'll try it again.
I also altered this dish.... I followed the directions to hollow out the zuchini and placed the halve on a plate, sealted them all together with plastic wrap and basically steamed them for 2 mins. Then I put a little of the scrapings back in, used salt, pepper, and garlic salt of the zuchini. Then for the toppins I a layer of sun dried tomato pesto sauce, toped with mozzarella, pepperoni, mushrooms, onion flakes an parmesan
We liked these! I did add some minced garlic and a little salt and pepper to the mixture while it was cooking. Also, I did have to add a little seasoned breadcrumbs to the mixture because it was a little watery, but that was fine because it added extra flavor and helped it to bind together. They reminded us of pizza without the crust. I would definately make these again! Thanks for sharing. :)
This is an awesome recipe! I did add more vegetables and Newman's "Sockarooni" spaghetti sauce so I only gave it 4 stars. This is an ideal basic recipe that you can add to. Love it!
My husband and I loved this and the kids were ok so we will have it again. I took other people's advice and added garlic salt, italian seasoning and I had 1/2 a tomato and cut that up and added to the pepperoni mix. Very yummy
This is awesome. Great idea! I tweaked it a little, adding some garlic and shredded colby jack cheese. But it's a really good simple recipe. I love how easy it is. :)It tastes great. I paired it with another squash dish (butternut squash pasta) and it was great. It seemed very "autumn". :P
I loved this recipe. I did make a few slight changes though. I used a turkey kielbasa sausage and chopped it up. I also spread a little cream cheese in the zucchini before filling it, as another person suggested. Other than that I pretty much followed the recipe. It turned out great!
I changed things a tad by layering up from the bottom, tomato sauce, the onion and zucchini mixture (with a fresh garlic clove added), and motzerella cheese with the Parmesan cheese. My zucchini were on the large side so I cooked just them in the oven for a bit before adding the sauce, stuffing mixture and cheese. Also, it took longer then the 12 minutes to cook them so I backed the temp down to 350 degrees and left them in for 20-25 minutes. This was AWESOME. It was like having gluten free pizza and even my VERY picky son liked it! :)
I liked this recipe. I added mushrooms to the onion and zucchini mixture and seasoned the zucchini 'boat' before adding the filling.
The filling was decent...the actual zucchini...left much to be desired I guess.
It was yum ?? but I did tweak it a bit adding Italian herbs, garlic, chilli, diced tomatoes and bacon. Tasty cheese and Parmesan on top.
I liked it! I did however make a few additions. I scooped out the zucchini innards with a spoon and coated the skins with olive oil and italian seasonings. I baked the skins for 10 minutes and then added parmesan to the bottoms. I then put them back in the oven for five more minutes. After removing them from the oven, I layered pizza sauce, the zucchini and onion mixture, and hamburger. I covered these toppings with a layer of cheddar cheese and added the sliced pepperoni and another bit of cheddar cheese. Just like a pizza! I do not like zucchini much, but this was delicious! My kids did not like it, however, and I think it was due to the mushy texture of the "crust." Next time I may crisp the zucchini boats, so they crunch when bitten into.
This was so yummy. Put 4 stars and not 5 'cuz I changed some things. Microwaved the shells before putting in oven. Still found I cooked it for 20 mins. anyway. Added some cumin, butter, monterey jack, red pepper, and italian seasoning. I'm sure I would like this with other meats too... maybe ham even? Thinking any "pizza" topping would be good, in fact! Wonderful way to serve zucchini... will use this recipe over and over, I'm sure!
The only substitute was I added crushed red pepper flakes. And that added a little zip.
This recipe was very good and easy! I did bake the hollowed out zucchinis for 20 minutes at 370 since I don't like biting into crunchy zucchini, but other than that I didn't change it at all. Since I baked it twice the shells came out nice and tender and the filling in it was simple and wonderful. My husband and I really liked it, but the two year old didn't so much...oh well, we'll have it again for sure! Thanks for sharing this recipe, Singingchef!
I also put the cream cheese in the bottom, and I also used bacon instead of the pepperoni. Enjoyed it this way, would make it again.
I made this for the first time tonight and made it as is, I feel it is missing something as far as flavor goes.
This looks great, my family like more of a meat meal. Really do not think I will make it again. Sorry...
It was very good. I actually just ate this for dinner and I did like the flavors together. Thanks!
This was okay if you have lots of leftover zucchini, but will not be on my list of favorites.
I used a big zucchini fresh from the garden. I found the zucchini, onion, pepperoni mixture to be "soupy". I added some breadcrumbs, more cheese and garlic and it turned it into a more traditional stuffing to try to salvage the meal. Maybe I had too much zucchini?
This recipe is definitely a keeper! I sprinkled the shells with salt and pepper and put some olive oil in the saute pan. Good stuff!
Good recipe. I used a bit more pepperoni and added diced roma tomatoes. I also used a 4 cheese Italian blend from the supermarket. It came out a bit overstuffed though, next time I'll have to use 3 zucchini.
I am hooked! Zero Carbs :) I added the parmesan cheese to the zucchini stuffing after cooking also added a couple cloves of garlic then salt and pepper to taste
I fixed this recipe as printed, which was good. However, next time I'll make a few changes....probably add the tomatoes as others suggested, more cheese and bread crumbs to give the 'stuffing' a little more body.
I changed it up some. I sauted onions, diced pepperoni, and mushrooms in oluve oil. Then I added pizza marinara. I sprayed my zuchinni halves with olive oil and sprinkled with pizza seasoning, layered with mozzerella cheese and pepperoni mixture. Top with cheese and bake. So delicious!
I liked this one because it's so different than what I am used to. I used the green can parm. cheese I think it would be better with shredded parm and not the powdered stuff. I added parsley to the top and garlic powder and italian seasoning to the onion pepp. mixture.
We really liked it but I did make a few changes. Sprinkled the zucchini’s with garlic salt, pepper, and Italian spice blend. Added mini pepperoni, pizza sauce and mozzarella shredded cheese. Needed to bake a little longer than 15 minutes. I would make again. Thinking these could be made into appetizers by slicing the zucchini in smaller pieces but may be messy with the pizza sauce.
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