Save This Recipe
We'll email this post to you, so you can come back to it later!
These beef stuffed zucchini boats are an easy, filling dinner with seasoned ground beef, marinara, and melty mozzarella. You hollow out zucchini, press in seasoned raw ground beef, pour sauce around it, and let the oven handle the rest. Then mozzarella goes on top, because obviously. You’re going to love how little prep and cleanup it takes.
Why You’ll Love It
- One-dish dinner — the seasoned beef cooks right in the zucchini with marinara around it.
- Simple ingredients — zucchini, ground beef, jarred sauce, mozzarella, and basic seasonings.
- Filling without heaviness — tender zucchini, savory beef, and sauce keep every bite juicy.
- Easy to serve — pair the boats with cucumbers, tomatoes, a green salad, egg noodles, or crusty bread.
Ingredient Notes
Pick medium zucchini if you can. The enormous ones are impressive, sure, but they can be watery and a little seedy in the middle. Medium zucchini give you sturdy boats that cook through in the right amount of time without turning into green mush. I do not like mushy zucchini. I mean, I’ll eat it—I’m not made of stone—but I don’t like it.
For the beef, use 80 to 90 percent lean. I usually buy 85 percent because it has enough fat to stay flavorful, but it doesn’t leave the baking dish looking like an oil spill. Leaner beef is fine too, and so is a beef-and-ground-turkey mixture if that’s what’s in the freezer. Just use a thermometer. I am bossy about that, especially with ground meat.
Jarred marinara is completely the point here. Use one you like the taste of straight from the jar. Rao’s is nice when it’s on sale; Classico has gotten me through many a meal; store brand can be perfectly fine. Don’t overthink it. A mild sauce is especially good if you have picky eaters.
Pre-shredded mozzarella is what I use most of the time, because I have better things to do than grate Cheese after work. Freshly shredded melts a little softer, yes, yes. But we are making dinner, not auditioning for a cooking show. If you have dried oregano but not Italian seasoning, use it. If you have neither, the recipe will still be dinner.
Ingredients
- 4 medium zucchini, washed well—about 6 to 8 inches long is nice, though nature does not consult me
- 1 pound ground beef, 80–90% lean
- 1 1/2 cups jarred marinara or pasta sauce, give or take a spoonful if your jar is already open
- 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, freshly ground if you’re feeling fancy
- 1 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning or dried oregano, optional but I do like it
- Olive oil or cooking spray, for greasing the baking dish
Instructions
Heat your oven to 375°F. Lightly grease a 9-by-13-inch glass baking dish with olive oil or cooking spray. I use glass because that’s what I have, and because my old metal pan has a warped corner that makes it wobble like a table at a roadside diner. It has survived a kitchen renovation, though, so I can’t bring myself to toss it.
Trim the stem ends from the zucchini, then slice each one lengthwise into two long halves. Take a spoon and scoop out the seeds and a little of the soft center flesh, making a channel down the middle of each half. Leave about 1/4 inch of zucchini around the sides and bottom so the boats don’t collapse while baking. You don’t need to scrape them paper-thin—been there, and those floppy little boats were not my finest hour.
Arrange the hollowed zucchini halves, cut side up, snugly in the greased dish. If one rolls around like it has somewhere better to be, shave off the tiniest sliver from the rounded bottom so it sits flat. Don’t take too much; zucchini is slippery, and I have nearly sent one across the kitchen more than once.
In a medium bowl, combine the ground beef, kosher salt, black pepper, and Italian seasoning or oregano, if you’re using it. Use a fork or clean hands and mix only until the seasonings are worked in. Don’t knead it to death. Overmixed beef can get dense, and nobody wants a zucchini boat packed with a meatloaf brick.
With clean hands, pinch off portions of the raw seasoned beef and press them into the zucchini channels. Fill them from end to end, pressing firmly enough that the beef holds together, and let it mound just a little above the zucchini edges. I do this directly in the baking dish whenever possible, mostly because I dislike washing a cutting board that has had raw beef on it. That’s not laziness; that’s wisdom earned the annoying way.
Pour the marinara all around and between the stuffed zucchini. Let a little run over the tops if you like. It will seem like there’s more sauce than necessary, but it keeps the zucchini moist and gives you plenty to spoon over everything later. Cover the dish tightly with foil.
Bake for 30 minutes. The zucchini should be beginning to soften, and the beef should be mostly cooked through. While it bakes, I usually clear the mail off the table, which is a ridiculous ritual in this house. Why does junk mail multiply faster than zucchini? Nobody knows.
Carefully remove the foil—it will release a blast of steam, so don’t lean right over it like I did and then complain about my glasses fogging up. Sprinkle the mozzarella evenly over the tops of the beef-filled zucchini.
Return the dish to the oven uncovered and bake for another 10 to 15 minutes, until the cheese is melted and lightly golden. Check the thickest part of the beef in one zucchini boat with an instant-read thermometer; it needs to reach at least 160°F. I know thermometers feel like one more thing, but ground beef is not where I choose to be casual.
Let the zucchini boats rest for 5 to 10 minutes before serving. They’re easier to lift out, and the juices settle down a bit. Spoon that warm sauce from the bottom of the dish over each serving. Extra Parmesan and crushed red pepper at the table are never a bad idea.
Variations
For little kids—or grown people with very firm opinions about green things—use a mild marinara and leave out the Italian seasoning. They can add their own cheese at the table, which somehow makes it more acceptable.
You can swap the mozzarella for an Italian cheese blend, or cheddar if that’s what you have. Cheddar is not traditional, exactly, but neither is a late dinner, and life goes on. If your zucchini are especially large, you may need a little extra sauce and cheese and a few extra minutes in the oven.
I have also finely chopped some of the scooped-out zucchini centers and gently mixed them into the ground beef. That works well. One time I tried adding a bunch of breadcrumbs, thinking I was being clever, and the filling got too bulky and oddly dry. So I don’t do that anymore. Clever is overrated.
Storage & Reheating
Cool leftovers and get them into the refrigerator within two hours. They’ll keep well for 3 to 4 days in a covered container. The zucchini does soften more as it sits—there’s no getting around that—but the flavor is still good, maybe even better after resting.
Reheat individual portions in the microwave until steaming hot, or warm them covered in the oven if you have more time. Add a spoonful of marinara if the dish looks dry. Leftovers are good chopped up over egg noodles, which is not elegant but is honestly pretty smart. I prefer eating one cold from the fridge while deciding what to make for lunch.
Final Notes
There’s something comforting about a meal that doesn’t ask much of you. Especially when everybody is sticky and slightly irritable and the sun is still glaring through the kitchen window like it pays the mortgage.
These beef stuffed zucchini boats are not glamorous. They’re not meant to be. They’re just dependable: tender zucchini, savory beef, red sauce pooling around the edges, cheese stretching from fork to plate if you catch it at the right moment.
And if someone at your table says they “don’t really like zucchini,” well… hand them one anyway. With enough mozzarella, most of us can be persuaded.
Oven-Baked 4-Ingredient Beef Stuffed Zucchini
Ingredients
- 4 medium zucchini washed well, about 6 to 8 inches long
- 1 pound ground beef 80–90% lean
- 1 1/2 cups jarred marinara or pasta sauce plus or minus a spoonful, as needed
- 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper freshly ground, if desired
- 1 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning or dried oregano optional
- olive oil or cooking spray for greasing the baking dish
Instructions
- Heat the oven to 375°F and lightly grease a 9-by-13-inch glass baking dish with olive oil or cooking spray.
- Trim the stem ends from the zucchini, then slice each one lengthwise into two long halves.
- Use a spoon to scoop out the seeds and a little of the soft center flesh, making a channel down the middle of each half and leaving about 1/4 inch of zucchini around the sides and bottom.
- Arrange the hollowed zucchini halves cut side up snugly in the greased dish, shaving a tiny sliver from the rounded bottom of any zucchini half that will not sit flat.
- In a medium bowl, combine the ground beef, kosher salt, black pepper, and Italian seasoning or oregano, if using, mixing only until the seasonings are worked in.
- With clean hands, pinch off portions of the raw seasoned beef and press them into the zucchini channels from end to end, mounding the beef just a little above the zucchini edges.
- Pour the marinara all around and between the stuffed zucchini, letting a little run over the tops if desired, then cover the dish tightly with foil.
- Bake for 30 minutes, until the zucchini is beginning to soften and the beef is mostly cooked through.
- Carefully remove the foil, sprinkle the mozzarella evenly over the tops of the beef-filled zucchini, and return the dish to the oven uncovered.
- Bake for another 10 to 15 minutes, until the cheese is melted and lightly golden and the thickest part of the beef reaches at least 160°F, then let the zucchini boats rest for 5 to 10 minutes before serving with sauce spooned over each portion.