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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. Try our Zucchini Tomato Pie next. 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. If you like this, you’ll love our Baked Zucchini Spears. 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 Oven-Baked 4-Ingredient Beef Stuffed Zucchini 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.

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