This cake was a birthday staple given by a coworker. It is incredibly easy, quick to prepare, and VERY moist. Use any cake mix flavor that contains pudding.
| Prep Time: | 15 mins |
| Cook Time: | 1 hr 10 mins |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 25 mins |
| Servings: | 6 |
| Yield: | 6 stuffed zucchini halves |
Ingredients
- 3 large zucchini
- 1 (14 ounce) can petite diced tomatoes
- 1 small white onion, minced
- 1 small green bell pepper, minced
- 4 tablespoons butter
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 pound bulk pork sausage
- 2 pinches Italian seasoning
- salt and ground black pepper to taste
- 1 (10 ounce) can tomato sauce
- 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
- 1 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
- 1 pinch minced fresh Italian parsley
Instructions
- Cut zucchinis in half lengthwise and spoon out the seeds, being careful not to go through to the skin. Place zucchini guts in a bowl; mix in diced tomatoes, white onion, and green pepper.
- Heat butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and sautè until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the zucchini pulp mixture. Sautè until almost tender, about 5 minutes. Stir in sausage, Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper.
- Let mixture simmer for about 5 minutes; add the tomato sauce. Simmer for 5 minutes more, then reduce heat to low.
- Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Bring a pot of water on the stove to a boil.
- Place the zucchini halves in the boiling water for 3 minutes. Remove the zucchini.
- Place zucchini halves into an oven-safe baking dish. Fill the pieces with your sausage mixture. Top them off with mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses. Cover with foil.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes. Remove the aluminum foil. Continue to cook until tender, about 30 minutes more.
- Garnish with fresh parsley and enjoy!
Reviews
We love Italian Sausage and have an overabundance of summer squash. This recipe was a win! My squash had some large seeds, so I tossed them. My son doesn’t like squash, so I didn’t scoop out very much and I used a large onion and pepper. I simmered the mixture on the stove longer than suggested. Cooked the squash in the microwave until just tender. Then I filled the squash, topped with cheese and put back in the microwave to melt. I added leftover macaroni to the rest of the filling mixture and served to my son. I love when I can adapt a recipe I love to feed my picky son, too.
Very good! I used ground beef instead of sausage and added a bit more garlic and Italian seasoning. Served the zucchini with garlic toast. Thank you!
I was looking for a tasty recipe to use up some zucchini that my friend gave me. This fit the bill! The Italian sausage gave it a lot of flavor and boiling the zucchini gave it the perfect texture. I didn’t make any changes to the recipe.
I followed the recipe very close. Used maple flavored breakfast sausage as that it what I happened to have thawed and ready. Came out great. Will definitely make this again.
8-15-22 Directions seemed sketchy to me as I have never cooked these before. Yes,I did include the seeds in The “guts” of the zucchini. Yes, I did add raw sausage to Tomato mixture. I did not have green pepper so used 1/2 red And one Serrano pepper. My goodness. These were perfection. Even picky hubby who frowns with any veggie I put before he loved these. Winner for sure.
Loved this recipe, though I did make changes. Used grass-fed beef instead of bulk sausage and discarded the zucchini “guts” to eliminate all the lectins from the seeds. I also used organic tomato sauce & tomatoes in the recipe, spreading the sauce on the bottom of the baking dish. Parboiling the zucchini for the 3 minutes was an excellent tip which made them very tender. They were delicious!
I made it with 4 small/medium zucchini and had plenty of stuffing. I had to use 8 ounce can of tomato sauce since I couldn’t find the 10 ounce. I did not have shredded Parmesan so I used 1/2 cup grated Parmesan. It turned out very good! The oven times were perfect for my oven. It does take some prep time, about 30 minutes for me but is well worth it! Good way to use all those zucchini that are coming on!