Vegan Stuffed Zucchini

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Vegan Stuffed Zucchini is a delicious entree that uses hollowed out fresh zucchini as a boat for an incredible filling. Our vegan zucchini boats are filled with tender soy curl morsels and can be flavored either as vegan beef or vegan sausage. Plus it's ready in just 35 minutes. So grab a spoon and start carving your zucchini!

Hey Internet, we really love a good vegan zucchini recipe here in the ZardyPlants household. They're an affordable vegetable, especially in the summer, and have such a creamy texture and sweet yet neutral flavor. They are really low calorie too; a medium zucchini (196 g) is about 33 calories and has over 50% of your daily Vitamin C! Along with potassium and Vitamin B6, they're a great way to get in some nutrients in your diet.

We've use zucchini in a variety of our recipes. They're the stars in our Creamy Zucchini Risotto and our Vegan Zucchini Soup and they are really creamy entrees. We also use zucchini in our breakfasts, like in our Vegan Savory Muffins as a way to sneak in some extra veggies into our day. Zucchini is also just really nice sliced into round medallions and baked, like in our creamy Vegan Squash Casserole.

For this recipe, however, zucchini is being used as an easy-to-make vessel for delicious vegan meat and tender vegetables. These vegan zucchini boats are made by scooping out the central flesh of the zucchini. It's so soft that you can remove the zucchini pulp with just a grapefruit spoon. Just slice your zucchini length wise, then make a trench in your zucchini halves and you'll have your little boats ready for filling!

For our vegan filling, we use soy curls for our vegan meat. Soy curls are so flexible: they can mimic almost any type meat. For these zucchini boats, we like to flavor them like vegan sausage or vegan ground beef (details provided). If you want to be even more decadent, you could try our Soy Curl Bacon with it. Or if you don't have soy curls on hand, you can use store-bought meatless meat, such as Beyond Sausage or Impossible Burger.

We also love a good meat alternative here at ZardyPlants. Check out our big compilation of vegan meat recipes, or our compilation of tofu recipes!

No matter what meatless meat you use, your filling will be delicious with our recipe. With lots of veggies paired with it and topped marinara sauce and vegan cheese, these Vegan Stuff Zucchini will be your fun new way of making main course plant forward. So let's dive into this new recipe.

Why You'll Love This Vegan Stuffed Zucchini

• Super Easy to Make: Just preheat your oven, cook your filling in a skillet, scoop out your zucchini, and then fill them. It should only take you about 10 to 15 minutes of prep to get this vegan zucchini boats recipe into the oven on a baking tray.
• So Much Flavor: With yellow and red bell pepper, onions, garlic, marinara, Italian seasoning and more, you'll need to add this to your list of favorite vegan recipes.
• Lots of Hidden Veggies: Zucchini, bell pepper and onions are very nutritious, plus it's easy to add even more! It's super fun to customize this recipe.

Ingredients

See the recipe card at the bottom of this post for full ingredients, instructions, and accurate nutritional information (to the best of my ability; please consult your physician or healthcare professional if you have specific dietary needs). I give substitutions for the ingredients in the section below this one, so most people can still make this recipe!

• 3 Zucchini: You may need to make a judgment call on the number of zucchini you need. This depends on the size of your zucchini. We used 3 medium zucchini, but they come in all sorts of different sizes. From large zucchini almost as big as my arm to small zucchini that's barely bigger than one of my fingers. It all depends on how hungry you are and what you have available to you. Note that you'll need a large enough pan to bake your vegan stuffed zucchini in.
• 1.5 Cups Onion, Diced: We used a yellow onion to complement the savory flavors of the zucchini boat recipe. As such, I would try and avoid using red onion. Remember to chop off a little bit of the top of the onion to make peeling the outer skin much easier.
• 1 Bell Pepper, Red, Orange, or Yellow: You'll want to diced your bell pepper finely. They are going into the filling so you'll want them to be able to fit into the vegan zucchini boat's trench.
• Three Cloves Garlic: This is about one tablespoon of minced garlic, depending on the size of the cloves you use. We tend to use the biggest ones and if we have small ones, we count them as half of a large one.
• 2 Cups Soy Curl Crumbles: Soy curls come dried in a package. We use the smaller pieces for this recipe and save our longer soy curls for soy curl bacon or vegan BBQ chicken. We're going to hydrate them with the next ingredient.
• 1.5 Tablespoons Vegan Beef Bouillon + 2.5 Cups Warm Water: For this recipe, we are going to focus on making a beef vegan ground meat. The best way to do this is to use a bouillon or packaged vegan broth and to let the soy curls to soak in them. We'll go over ways to flavor the soy curls in other ways in the substitutions section below.
• One Jar (25 oz) Pasta Sauce or Marinara: Depending on what marinara sauce you go with, you may need to doctor your tomato sauce with extra garlic powder, onion powders, or Italian seasoning. If you have a marinara like Rao's or this Prego we like, you should have plenty of flavor. Always take a little taste of your sauce and make sure it's right for you.
• 1 Cup Vegan Mozzarella Cheese: We've used VioLife mozzarella shreds on top of our vegan stuffed zucchini for our plant-based cheese and it melts and tastes really good!
• 1 Tablespoon Italian Seasoning: If you have the fresh herbs, it's even better!
• Fresh Cracked Pepper and Salt, To Taste

Substitutions

• Zucchini: You can try Yellow Squash, another squash found in the summer months, to carve if you don't mind a different shape to your boats. Zucchini shells are just better because they tend to have a more consistent and uniform shape. Any other member of the squash family could theoretically work, but they tend to be denser and also very fall-like. There's something about summer zucchini flesh that is both easier to work with and refreshing. 
• Soy Curls: If you don't have soy curls, use a store bought vegan ground like Beyond Meat, Impossible Meat, Gardein Crumbles, etc.
• Vegan Beef Bouillon: If you don't have vegan bouillon paste or vegan beef broth on hand, you can always use some vegetable stock. If you want a sausage flavor, use some ground fennel and oregano while mixing your stock together. This has worked for us when using either the vegan beef stock or the vegetable stock.
• The Filling: Overall, you fill your stuffed zucchini boats with what ever floats your boat. While we found the soy curl mixture we used to be a great recipe, there are so many other ingredients you could try in them. To start, you could replace meatless meat with black beans or baby bella mushrooms. You could also make the filling much spicier with some red pepper flakes, chili powder, or some hot sauce.

How to Make Vegan Stuffed Zucchini

1. Prep Preheat your oven to 400 F or 205 C and find a deep baking dish or rimmed baking tray that will work with whatever size zucchini you have.
2. Soak your Soy Curls: Mix together your water and bouillon paste. Add your soy curls and warmed broth to a bowl and let them soak for about 10 minutes
3. Slice your Zucchini in Half, Length-Wise: Each zucchini will look like you have two boats with pale zucchini innards visible down the lengths.
4. Scoop Out a Troth: Using a spoon (we find a grapefruit spoon helps with this task), carve out the seeded flesh of the zucchini. You can easily get the bulk of it out in one or two fluid motions starting from the back with your spoon and pushing forward. Make sure to leave between ¼ to ½ inch of zucchini flesh behind so your zucchini will have a support structure for the filling.
5. Cook the Bell Peppers and Onion: Start a non-stick large skillet on medium-high heat. If you cook with olive oil, feel free to add a tablespoon and let it heat for a few moments. Add your bell peppers and diced onions. Cook them until they are soft and the onions are translucent.
6. Add the Garlic: Briefly cook the garlic. You want to add it now because it cooks much faster that the peppers and onions.
7. Add the Soy Curls: Before adding them squeeze out the excess liquid. This will increase the speed at which they cook. You want to lightly brown in the skillet.
8. Add Marinara: Add half of your pasta sauce and cook it just a little more so that it's warm.
9. Prepare the Zucchini: To a baking dish or baking sheet, add parchment paper or you can grease it with spray oil. Once lined, add each zucchini half with their trenches facing up.
10. Fill the Zucchini: Take your filling mixture and add it to each zucchini trench.
11. Cover the Filling: Add a layer of marinara sauce on top of the filling, followed by a sprinkling of vegan cheese.
12. Place in Oven: Cook for 20 to 25 minutes or until the zucchini is soft, but not mush.
13. Serve and Enjoy! Store any remaining zucchini boats in an airtight container for 1-2 days.

Expert Tips

• Optimizing soy curls usage: If you've been using soy curls in other recipes, this recipe is a great time to use up the crumbles and small pieces that tend to form at the bottoms of the bags.
• Add more flavor: You can use the leftover liquid from your soy curl soak to deglaze the pan. This will infuse your stock's flavor more into your filling mixture.
• Make the cheese more melty: Consider tenting your zucchini boats with a sheet of aluminum foil. Depending on the vegan cheese you use, it could dry out. This can help make your cheese melty instead!

Storage Instructions

After they have cooled, you can gently place your zucchini boats in either plastic or glass air-tight storage boxes. You may need to cut them in half depending on the size of your boxes. Refrigerate them for 1 to 2 days. 

Reheat on a plate in the microwave for 2 minutes or on a pan in the oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit (200 degrees Celsius) for 15-20 minutes until warm.

Serving Suggestions

Vegan Zucchini Boats are a main course item, so you'll want a great side to go with them. More veggies would be great way to add yet another healthy recipe to your meal. A starch would be another great pick, like potatoes or orzo. These are some great side recipes:

• Boiled Baby Potatoes
• Vegan Roasted Potatoes
• Vegan Pastina
• Air Fryer Frozen Asparagus
• Vegan White Bean Salad
• Vegan Green Bean Casserole

Frequently Asked Questions

More Vegan Zucchini Recipes

• Creamy Zucchini Risotto
• Vegan Zucchini Soup
• Vegan Squash Casserole
• Vegan Savory Muffins
• Vegan Sheet Pan Roasted Vegetable Pasta

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