August 14, 2009

Stuffed Zucchini with Ground Turkey

Because of my zucchini rampage I have four new recipes to show you. If you’re sick to death of hearing about zucchini, please have mercy on me. I love it. It’s in season. And I (still) have a lot of it. This first recipe isn’t new to us, and I actually thought it was on the blog already, so I made it again so I could get a photo of it to update the post. But the post wasn’t there. So here it is.These stuffed zucchini from Simply Recipes are hollowed out zucchinis stuffed with a mixture of ground turkey, vegetables and fresh herbs. Using fresh herbs makes a big difference here. So does using Parmesan cheese. I love Parmesan.I just saw a variation of this posted on Our Best Bites, but instead of baking the zucchini, they grilled it! (The girl who posted it made a comment about how baked zucchini gets slimy, but this doesn’t at all, I promise. There’s no marinara sauce, so that probably helps.)

Stuffed Zucchini with Ground Turkey

Ingredients:

1 zucchini about 12 inches long, or 6 medium ones
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup chopped onion
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup chopped mushrooms
2 tablespoons dry white wine (or chicken broth)
1 pound ground turkey
2 diced tomatoes
3 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary
3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

Directions:

Cut zucchini in half lengthwise. Scoop out insides, leaving shells about 1/4 inch thick. Reserve about half of the insides.

Heat 2 Tbsp of olive oil in a skillet on medium high heat. Sauté onion and garlic until soft. Add mushrooms and reserved zucchini insides, and sauté another 2 minutes. Remove from skillet and set aside. In the same skillet heat a Tbsp of olive oil on medium high heat. Add the ground turkey. Lightly brown the turkey, stirring only occasionally. After the turkey browns on one side, stir it so that it has a chance to brown on other sides. Cook until the ground turkey is lightly browned, about 6 minutes. Stir in the reserved onion and mushroom mixture. Add the wine or chicken broth. Stir in tomato, basil and rosemary and cook 1 minute longer. Drain any excess fat. Remove mixture from heat and set it aside.

When mixture has cooled, add cheese, egg, salt and pepper. Fill zucchini shells with mixture. Fill a baking pan with 1/4 inch of water. Place filled zucchini halves in pan and bake at 375 degrees for 40 minutes, until golden brown. Remove zucchini from pan and serve while hot.

Serves 4.

Nat's Notes:
1. If you don't have an open can of chicken broth and don't want to open a new can to get 2 T out, just use water instead.

from Simply Recipes

Italian, Main Dish Poultry

7 comments »

7 Responses to “Stuffed Zucchini with Ground Turkey”

1

Cynthia — August 16, 2009 @ 2:41 am

Hey cool! I didn't know you had this blog too. I've been looking for a recipe to use the Ground Turkey in the freezer. This one will also help me get rid of some zuchinni- double bonus.

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2

Natalie — August 18, 2009 @ 11:23 pm

Yep, this is where I spend the other half of my life. :)

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3

Larisa — March 13, 2013 @ 6:37 am
Hey there! I made this recipe last night, and overall, it was quite good. Unfortunately, it was waaaaay too much pepper. I actually came back to see if anyone else had commented on this. I love pepper, but this was cough-inducing. I will definitely make this again, but with probably 1/2 to 1 tsp pepper. Thanks for the recipe!

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- Natalie Perry replied: — March 13th, 2013 @ 7:36 am
  
  Hi Larisa,
  
  You’re so right. I think 2 teaspoons is way too much, too. I think that may be a typo (It’s been so long since I’ve made this I honestly don’t remember!). I’ll reduce it to a 1/2 teaspoon. Thanks for catching that!
4

jessica — March 28, 2013 @ 4:29 pm
Made this tonight… made just a few changes. Did have mushrooms so i added chopped green pepper instead. I also put the zucchini in the pan with water and microwaved it for 5 minutes so that it would cook bake quicker. I them emptied the water from the pan, put some no salt added tomato sauce in the bottom of the pan, mixed some tomato sauce with the turkey mixture and baked as the instructions suggested. It felt like the reciped needed something else, tomato sauce did the trick! It was SO yummy. Thanks for the great idea!

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- jessica replied: — March 28th, 2013 @ 4:30 pm
  
  wow, sorry for all of the typos, but I think you get the idea :)
5

Yliana — April 12, 2013 @ 7:20 pm

My family and I love zucchini, so please feel free to continue sharing these delicious recipes… this was absolutely delicious! My 22 month old twins loved it, so I’m a happy mommy, not to mention it’s a tasty and healthy meal for my mother, who has metastatic breast cancer. I have made big changes in our family’s diet, trying to instill good eating habits in the twins so they’ll eat wisely always. Thank you for this amazing dish.

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