Healthy Italian Sausage Stuffed Zucchini – the perfect way to use your summer zucchini! (Whole30/Dairy-Free)

Zucchini is officially in season!

I don’t know about you guys, but our garden is producing some seriously HUGE zucchini this year – perfect time to whip up some of these Healthy Italian Sausage Stuffed Zucchini! This is one of my mom’s recipes from my childhood that has a million memories attached to it – I made a few modifications to make it Whole30 compliant (like swapping out the cheese with nutritional yeast!) and I am so excited to be sharing it with you guys!!

This is a recipe that I would typically make on a weekend, although if you were really on top of your game you could really prep some of it ahead of time to make it more weeknight-friendly — you could scoop out the zucchini to make shells and then keep those covered in the fridge and then make the “stuffing” and keep that in the fridge. Then, when you wanted to eat, all you would have to do is actually stuff the zucchini shells, top with some marinara and toss them in the oven!

They are so fresh and delicious and, to me, they just taste like summer! Here is the recipe for my mom’s actual recipe which uses bread crumbs and mozzarella cheese 🙂

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Love,

Healthy Italian Sausage Stuffed Zucchini

Author: Erin - The Wooden Skillet
Category: Dinner
Method: Oven
Cuisine: American

Ingredients

4 large zucchini or 6 smaller zucchini
1 pound ground Italian sausage
1 cup diced sweet yellow onion
1 Teaspoon dried basil
1 Teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 Teaspoon salt
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
whole30 compliant marinara
Fresh chopped basil, oregano and/or parsley for garnish

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375.
Scoop out insides of zucchini with spoon, leaving 1/4 in the shell (you want the outer “shell” to be fairly thick so it doesn’t fall apart).
Place insides into a separate bowl and set aside.
Parboil shells 2-3 minutes or until they just start to soften (parboil = just place shells in boiling water for a very short period of time to partially cook them).
Drain well and set on baking sheet.
In skillet, cook Italian sausage and drain off any grease.
While sausage is cooking, chop up insides of zucchini.
Return sausage to heat and add onion and the chopped zucchini.
Fry until zucchini is clear and then drain excess water.
Return to heat once more and add salt, oregano and basil; stir to combine.
Then add nutritional yeast and stir to combine.
Remove from heat.
Stuff zucchini shells with Italian sausage mixture.
Drizzle marinara on top.
Bake for 20 minutes.
Serve immediately and garnish with fresh basil, oregano and/or parsley, if desired.