• Main Dishes
  • Stuffed Zucchini Boats with Garlic Sauce

    This post may contain affiliate links for which I earn a commission. Read my disclosure page here.

    Today, I am sharing with you a recipe for Stuffed Zucchini Boats with Yogurt Garlic Sauce (the sauce is amazing!). All credit for the recipe goes to my Mom. I was just her assistant and food photographer. 🙂

    Stuffed Zucchini Boats

    My husband, who is the official taste tester for all the recipes on my blog, doesn’t like zucchini (and mushrooms & peas). So I thought that he will probably eat the stuffing and leave the zucchini boats on the plate. He even reminded me that he dislikes zucchini as we started eating. He took several bites of the stuffing topped with the garlic sauce and said it tastes very good. I didn’t notice until a few minutes later that he had cleaned his plate and the zucchini boat was gone as well. He had eaten everything! I asked him if he noticed that he ate the zucchini as well, and he said, that it was very good! My husband absolutely loved this dish! The next day, he wanted to have another stuffed zucchini boat! Yay! Success! I have already convinced him that mushrooms are delicious, with my chicken with mushroom wine sauce, and now he likes zucchini as well. Mission accomplished! My next challenge will be to create a dish with green peas that he likes. That will be a tough one.

    I hope this convinces you too to try this dish as well! I am sure you will love it too! And even your pickiest of eaters will ask for seconds. Don’t forget to make the garlic sauce, it’s a game changer! And only a few minutes to make. It’s truly phenomenal and adds so much flavor to the stuffed zucchini boats. Did I mention that it’s also very versatile and goes really well with stuffed peppers, as a dip, on chicken, and anything else you like? My mouth is salivating just thinking about that garlic sauce and delicious yogurt-mayo- garlic flavor combo. Yum!

    For a Paleo version, substitute the cooked rice with cooked quinoa. Perfect summer dinner! Healthy, delicious and nutritious!

    You can also make these stuffed zucchini boats ahead, refrigerate and bake them when you are ready to eat, and they can also be prepared a day ahead. Leftovers also make a great lunch.

    Hope you give it a try and let me know how you like them in the comments below.

    Stuffed Zucchini Boats

    How to Make Stuffed Zucchini Boats

    What you need:

    3 zucchini

    1/2 lb ground beef

    1 medium onion, finely diced

    2 carrots, sliced in small quarts

    1 tomato, finely diced

    1/2 cup dry rice

    cumin, to taste

    oregano, to taste

    salt & freshly ground pepper

    Garlic Sauce

    1 1/2 cup yogurt

    1 cup mayonnaise

    10 garlic cloves, minced (start with 5 cloves and up the amount according to your own taste)

    1 tsp salt, or to taste

    1 Tbsp fresh chopped dill

    Preparation

    Cook rice according to package instructions.

    Half zucchini in half lengthwise. Remove the middle of each zucchini boat and place it in a bowl.

    Preheat oven to 400 F.

    Brown meat in a large skillet for about 5  minutes until done. Season meat with salt, freshly ground black pepper, oregano, and cumin. Transfer to a plate.

    Heat 1 Tbsp oil in the same skillet. Add chopped onion, season with salt and cook until translucent. To the same skillet add chopped carrots, season with salt and cook until carrots are tender (about 3-4 minutes). Add 3/4 of the zucchini mixture and finely diced tomato. Season again with salt, freshly ground black pepper and oregano. Cook until vegetables are tender and flavors are well incorporated (about 2-3 minutes).

    Stuffed Zucchini Boats

    Add ground beef and cooked rice to the skillet and mix everything.

    Season zucchini boats inside with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

    Stuffed Zucchini Boats

    Fill zucchini boats with the vegetable-beef-rice mixture and place them on a large baking sheet. Add water to the baking sheet (about 1/2 inch). This helps keep the zucchini boats tender and moist. Bake at 400 F for about 40 minutes.

    Stuffed Zucchini Boats

    While the zucchini boats are baking, prepare the yogurt garlic sauce.

    Just before serving, top stuffed zucchini boats with the garlic sauce. It’s so delicious!

    Garlic Sauce

    In a medium mixing bowl, whisk Greek yogurt, mayo, minced garlic, and salt. Finally, add chopped dill and stir well. You can adjust the ingredients according to your liking, Add less or more mayo or garlic according to your taste.

    Stuffed Zucchini Boats-9

    Enjoy!

    Stuffed Zucchini Boats
    Stuffed Zucchini Boats

    More Delicious Summer Dinners:

    Stuffed Zucchini Boats
    5 from 4 votes
    Print Review Pin It!

    Stuffed Zucchini Boats with Garlic Sauce

    Baked Stuffed Zucchini Boats is an easy, delicious go-to dinner loved by all ages. My husband, who doesn’t like zucchini, cleaned his plate!!
    Prep Time 10 minutes
    Cook Time 50 minutes
    Total Time 1 hour
    Servings 6
    Calories 487kcal

    INGREDIENTS

    Garlic Sauce

    INSTRUCTIONS

    • Cook rice according to package instructions.
    • Half zucchini in half lengthwise. Remove the middle of each zucchini boat and place it in a bowl.
    • Preheat oven to 400 F.
    • Brown meat in a large skillet for about 5 minutes until done. Season meat with salt, freshly ground black pepper, oregano, and cumin. Transfer to a plate.
    • Heat 1 Tbsp oil in the same skillet. Add chopped onion, season with salt and cook until translucent. To the same skillet add chopped carrots, season with salt and cook until carrots are tender (about 3-4 minutes). Add 3/4 of the zucchini mixture and finely diced tomato. Season again with salt, freshly ground black pepper and oregano. Cook until vegetables are tender and flavors are well incorporated (about 2-3 minutes).
    • Add ground beef and cooked rice to the skillet and mix everything.
    • Season zucchini boats inside with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
    • Fill zucchini boats with vegetable beef rice mixture and place them on a large baking sheet. Add water to the baking sheet (about 1/2 inch). This helps keep the zucchini boats tender and moist. Bake at 400 F for about 40 minutes.
    • While the zucchini boats are baking, prepare the yogurt garlic sauce.
    • Just before serving, top stuffed zucchini boats with the garlic sauce. It’s so delicious!

    Garlic Sauce

    • In a medium mixing bowl, whisk Greek yogurt, mayo, minced garlic, and salt. Finally, add chopped dill and stir well. You can adjust the ingredients according to your liking, Add less or more mayo or garlic according to your taste.

    TIPS & NOTES

    The nutrition information in the recipe card does not include nutrition facts about the yogurt garlic sauce. See label below.
    • Remove the middle of the zucchini with a melon baller or teaspoon.
    • I used white rice, but the recipe will work just as well with wild or brown rice.
    • The garlic sauce will keep covered in the fridge for about 5 days.

    NUTRITION

    Serving: 201g | Calories: 487kcal | Carbohydrates: 25g | Protein: 12g | Fat: 38g | Saturated Fat: 9g | Cholesterol: 50mg | Sodium: 703mg | Potassium: 638mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 8g | Vitamin A: 3849IU | Vitamin C: 25mg | Calcium: 126mg | Iron: 2mg
    Course Main Course
    Cuisine Mediterranean
    Keyword Egg-Free, Gluten Free, Healthy, Low Fat, Nut-Free, Spring, Summer
    Did you make this recipe?

    Use the tag #DeliciousMeetsHealthy when posting a picture of your recipe, and make sure to follow @deliciousmeetshealthy on Instagram!

    Leave a Reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    Recipe Rating




    This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

    Comments

    Dana

    Just made this, it was delicious! The garlic sauce definitely makes the dish!

    Lorna N

    Haven’t tried it yet, but I don’t agree with your calorie count! Mayo is a total of 1504 calories, or 250/person.

      Hi Lorna,
      Thank you for your feedback! It does look like the nutrition info was off. It is automatically calculated by the recipe card (which is developed by a developer, not me) and I didn’t manually calculate or enter the nutrition information.
      I just run an update on the nutrition info and it looks much better. Also, you will have about 3 cups of the sauce which is way more than what you need for 6 servings. We just love the sauce or if we have leftover, we use the rest for other recipes.
      Hope you give this recipe a try, I think you will love it!

    Lesley

    5 stars
    With an overabundance of zucchini from my garden, I’ve recently made zucchini bread, zucchini fritters, zucchini frittata, and stuffed taco zucchini. So last night I made your stuffed zucchini boats with the garlic sauce. It is delicious and I will be making this again…..it’s a keeper. My husband loved it too.

      Neli | Delicious Meets Healthy

      Wonderful!! So glad you and your husband loved it!! 🙂
      We also have lots of zucchini in our garden, planning on adding more zucchini recipes here.

    Kourosh

    My mum made this for me and my dad tonight and we both thought that the garlic sauce was just too much to handle. I definitely thought that 10 garlic cloves was way too much for that amount of yogurt. 1 or 2 would have been plenty. Even my dad, who is from an Asian background and he is used to eating a lot of garlic, agreed with me. We both had headaches afterwards and neither of us could stomach it. That said, I tried the rice, meat, and veg mixture on it’s own and it tasted nice. So I would strongly urge people who have never made this before to not use 10 cloves of minced garlic until you’ve tried it a few times. 1 or 2 is plenty.

      Delicious Meets Healthy

      Hi Kourosh! I am glad to hear that you liked the stuffed zucchini! Sorry that the yogurt garlic sauce didn’t turn out that way. It’s a traditional Mediterranean/Eastern European cuisine, and it turns out great every time I make it. My husband, who doesn’t like unusual tastes, also loves it and has seconds every time.
      I don’t know how big the cloves of garlic your Mom used were, neither how strong they tasted. I always try the food when I cook a new recipe and adjust it to my own preference/taste.
      Thanks for letting me know though – I added a note to the recipe.
      P.S. I just saw that the recipe instructions do read to adjust the ingredients for the garlic sauce to your own liking by adding more or less mayo and garlic.

    Joy @ Joy Love Food

    Yum, I love zucchini, this sounds like a wonderful preparation!

    Kimberly @ The Daring Gourmet

    Yummy, these look and sound delicious!

    Debra @ Bowl Me Over

    Just can’t have too much zucchini – I’m so glad you hubby loved this too. Can’t wait to give it a try!

    Chrisy @ Homemade Hooplah

    5 stars
    Absolutely loving the flavors in this! And it’s great to hear that your husband liked it – it gives me hope that maybe mine will as well!

    Barbara @SpiritedCook

    5 stars
    Oh yum! My mother used to make something similar to this with bell peppers and I loved it as a kid! We have so much zucchini now this would be a great variation. I’m saving this recipe, thank you!

    Kristen @ A Mind Full Mom

    I love stuffing just about anything into zucchinis, but I am telling you that sauce looks just perfect!!!

    Sarah

    5 stars
    You had me at garlic sauce – this sounds amazing!

    Spring Salads

    5 Quick Tips To Simplify Dinner Time