The cornbread in the skillet is delicious! It’s a wonderful starting point recipe because it’s not overly sweet. Cookware made of cast iron is adaptable. Although they take some time to heat up, preheating the skillet enables the cornbread to cook more uniformly.
| Prep Time: | 20 mins |
| Cook Time: | 30 mins |
| Total Time: | 50 mins |
| Servings: | 4 |
| Yield: | 4 servings |
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 cloves garlic, peeled and coarsely chopped
- 1 pinch crushed red pepper flakes
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil
- 1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
- 1 teaspoon white sugar
- 1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 2 medium zucchini, cubed
- 1 pinch red pepper flakes
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 ½ cups shredded mozzarella cheese
- 4 (6 inch) French or Italian sandwich rolls, split
Instructions
- To make marinara sauce, heat olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat (see Cook’s Note). Add garlic, basil and red pepper flakes; cook and stir for a minute or two until fragrant. Stir in sugar, vinegar, salt, and pepper. Pour in tomatoes with their juices and simmer over low heat for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and puree until smooth in food processor or blender.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
- Melt butter in a skillet over medium heat. Cook the zucchini in butter until browned and slightly tender. Season with red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper.
- Spoon a generous amount of the zucchini mixture into each sandwich roll. Cover zucchini with about 1/4 cup marinara sauce per roll. Top with a handful of shredded mozzarella. Close the rolls, and wrap individually in aluminum foil.
- Bake for 15 minutes in the preheated oven, until bread is heated through, rolls are soft, and cheese is melted.
- You can use about 1 cup of marinara sauce out of the jar if you don’t feel like making this one. With premade sauce, these sandwiches are ready in about half an hour.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 339 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 37 g |
| Cholesterol | 35 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 3 g |
| Protein | 17 g |
| Saturated Fat | 7 g |
| Sodium | 729 mg |
| Sugars | 7 g |
| Fat | 15 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
Delicious, filling, healthy, and low calorie (339). We love the intense Mediterranean flavor. We added a little extra fresh basil.
Yes, I made that zucchini grinder and no one, including me liked it.
Awesome Recipe:)))
Very good! I used both fresh mozzarella cubes and shredded low moisture mozzarella together. I like pitted Kalamata olives on the side. I sliced my zucchini on a mandolin. I HIGHLY recommend King Arthur Flour Company’s recipe for Italian Sub Rolls. The rolls are firm and do not go soft or mushy with the marinara.
Yum!!! This recipe is great!! I used marinara out of the jar because i had some on hand that needed to be used. Thanks for sharing!
Perfect for all the extra zucchini right now! I didn’t bother to puree anything so it was a little messy but definitely worth it. I think this would work with lots of different cheeses – I used cheddar, parmesan, and some mozzarella.
Warn people who are unfamiliar with these that they are VERY SPICY!!
I added onions and mushrooms to mine, and toasted the bread to avoid the sandwiches getting soggy. Really, really good sandwiches, thanks!
I am so incredibly disappointed. I thought that I would get a ton of zucchini this year like I have been every other year, so I looked up many zucchini recipes to try. They have not been growing well this year, however. I had only 2 zucchini and decided to waste them on this. I had other recipes that I could have used, but went along with the good reviews on this one. This had little to no flavor and took way too long for such a disappointment. I have to throw it all away because the rest of my family will not eat it either.
I was looking for recipes to use zucchini from our garden. This was so great I make the components for my wife to take to work and put together in her microwave. It is a light lunch full of flavor!
These sandwiches are delicious. My husband asks for them regularly.
This recipe is amazing, so tasty. We have food allergies in our family, and everybody loved it.
I’m kind of surprised by all the 5 star reviews on this recipe. It seemed kind of bland to me, but the biggest issue I had was that it was really hard to eat. I tried the tricks suggested by reviewers to keep the bread from getting soggy: I toasted the buns first and I put mozzarella under the zucchini. But the bread still got completely soaked. Maybe my zucchini had a very high water content (it was fresh from my garden). My family members ate this and enjoyed it, I think, but I won’t make this again in this form. It was just impossible to eat like a sandwich.
This was DE-licious! I am planning to make the sauce for a pasta dish, and for pretty much anything that needs tomato sauce. I contemplated just using sauce from a jar, but I am SO happy I didn’t!
my husband added sausage to his and was very happy with the taste. i left mine as is and it was awesome!
This was an instant hit with everyone in the household, including my 6 year old picky eater and the ‘meat-n-potato’ guy. I’m happy to have a new yummy meatless meal to add to the menu. Thank you!
Tasty and satisfying for my vegetarian and my meat eater. Only thing I decided to change was leaving the sauce chunky.
My husband initally turned his nose up at a zuchinni only sanwiches so I browned some italian sausage and tossed both the sausage and prepared zuchinni in a jar of marinara before piling into rolls. Hubs then LOVED and asked that I add to regular rotation of fav dishes. Looking forward to making sauce from scratch when my tomatoes from the garden finally redden.
Loved it, will be making again. Put cheese on bottom of bun like other reviewers suggest. Used brioche buns and canned marinara.
The marinara was really good but baking the sandwiches for 15 minutes was too much. My fault for not checking but know 15 was too long for me.
Seriously and surprisingly good. Make sure not to overcook the squash. (Yellow Crooked-Neck would be good here too) I skipped the red pepper flakes and added a dash of cayenne. I also used fresh roasted tomatoes rather than canned. I loved this as did my whole family…Including the kids!