Insanely Good Italian Vegetarian Stuffed Zucchini Boats Recipe (2024)

Vegetarian Stuffed Zucchini Boats made using natural ingredients like our plant-based vegetarian meat replacement and homemade vegan ricotta cheese. These stuffed zucchini boats are the Italian deliciousness you’ve been craving.

(Gluten-Free, Low-Carb, Plant-based, Vegan, Vegetarian )

These vegetarian stuffed zucchini boats are going to be a winner for dinner tonight. Zucchini season is going to be here before we know it (wishful thinking?) but luckily zucchini is still available in the grocery stores this time of year so these zucchini boats can be made year-round!

Then when you have zucchini growing out of your years in the back garden. You know what you’ll make with them. These fantastic plant-based Italian stuffed Zucchini Boats are made with all-natural ingredients. There is nothing processed in these including our vegetarian meat base. It’s the same base that we use for our vegetarian meatless meatballs so if you’ve tried those or our vegetarian tacos you’ll know this base is the jam.

How do you make stuffed zucchini’s vegetarian? 🌱

You use those epic meatless meat base that requires just two ingredients pulsed together: Cashews and Mushrooms.

Yep it is really THAT simple to make. You will need a food processor or a blender to pulse it all together. I ended up creating this meat substitute after realizing how many meat substitutes had high amounts of soy in them. For the people with soy allergies or simple don’t react well to it this recipe is for us!

Then all you have to do is simply season it how you see fit! In this case we add some Italian seasoning and garlic.

Now it is important that after you pulse together the meat base that you cook it in a skillet to soften the onions and cashews. While that is cooking you can move onto the vegan ricotta cheese.

Vegan Substitute for Ricotta Cheese – All you need to know about it.

We’ve been making this vegan cheese base for a while now and it’s because it is amazing. It’s in our Vegan Cheese Dip and our Vegan Taco Dip.

These days fortunately for us there are quite a few dairy-free cheese product alternatives available. The thing is we like to be able to choose what ingredients go into our meals and making vegan ricotta cheese is actually so simple that we prefer to make it. So if you’d like to use a dairy-free alternative go for it as it will work fine. But if you want or can’t find it in your grocery stores..

This is what you’ll need: cashews, fresh lemon juice, nutritional yeast, sea salt and water.

How do you put together the stuffed zucchini boats?

So once you’ve got your meatless base created, your vegan ricotta now comes the time to put it all together.

Carve out the center of the zucchini (see video in recipe card below for tips how to do this) and then layer your ricotta, meat replacement and spoon a hefty amount of marinara sauce on top. We like a TON of marinara sauce.. what about you?

NOTE: We are really focused on limiting food waste going into the landfill so either use the leftover carved out zucchini and hide it in other recipes like our Broccoli Tater Tots, or make zucchini fritters like these broccoli fritter, create a compost pile in your back garden or look into getting a indoor composting bin.

Then you can top with vegan shredded mozzarella if you’d like! Odd that sometimes our grocery store does not stock it and so we’ve eaten these without it before and it’s nice. You could always top with our Vegan Parmesan Cheese though as well if you want to stick entirely plant-based!

Can Vegetarian Stuffed Zucchini Boats be made ahead of time?

Yes. One of the things I found and was extremely grateful for is that these reheat extremely well. You can microwave or our preferred method would be to pop it back into the oven and reheat that way. About 10-15 minutes at 375 degrees F.

However, do keep an eye on it while you warm it back up. Also always set a timer. Learn from our own mistakes 😂

Just worth mentioning as well. One of our family members follow a low carb diet and while they are low carb the cashews are a bit higher in carbs so it’s about 15.5g Net Carbs a zucchini boat. So what he did was eat one zucchini boat and paired that with a side salad which kept him within what he needed to be for his carb counts that night.

So whether you are a zucchini fan or just trying to use up all those zucchinis growing in the garden this is perfect.

It has been a fabulous dish in our family as one needs to be low carb and the other not a huge meat person so these vegetarian stuffed zucchini boats really have made everyone happy!

Italian Vegetarian Stuffed Zucchini Boats Recipe

Dinner

Vegetarian, Gluten-Free, Vegan, Plant-Based, Low Carb

Italian

Vegetarian Stuffed Zucchini Boats made using natural ingredients like our plant-based vegetarian meat replacement and homemade vegan ricotta cheese. These stuffed zucchini boats are the Italian deliciousness you've been craving.

Print Recipe

Yield: 8

Prep Time:20 min

Cook Time:20 min

Total Time:40 min

Ingredients:

• 4 zucchini sliced in half lengthwise and cored.
• 1 cup vegan ricotta cheese (see recipe below)
• VeggieBalances vegetarian meat substitute (recipe here)
• 1 teaspoon garlic
• 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 jar of marinara sauce
• vegan mozzarella cheese for topping

Vegan Ricotta Cheese

• 1 cup cashews
• 2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon nutritional yeast
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 2-3 Tablespoons water

Directions:

• 1. Make the Vegan Ricotta and set it to the side.
• 2. Make the Vegetarian Meat in the processor. Use the olive oil to heat in a skillet. Add diced onion and cook until soft. Add 2 cloves of minced garlic and heat until fragrant. Add meat mixture to the skillet and Italian seasoning. Cook for 10 minutes until brown and crunchy.
• 3. Slice in half 4 zucchini lengthwise, and scoop out seeds. Layer boats with ricotta, meat mixture, marinara sauce, and vegan mozzarella cheese.
• 4. Bake on a baking sheet, uncovered, in a 375F for 15-20 minutes until heated through and cheese is melted.

Vegan Ricotta Cheese Instructions

• 1. In a small bowl add cashews, cover water over cashews. Allow to soak for at least 2 hours, best if overnight. Drain cashews of water after soaking.
• 2. Add soaked and drained cashews, nutritional yeast, lemon juice, sea salt, to a food processor.
• 3. Pulse on high for 15 seconds, scrape sides, continue to pulse until ingredients are combined. If a little thick add a Tablespoon of water at a time until it reaches the desired consistency mimicking ricotta cheese.

Author: Linnie

Recipe Video:

Nutrition Information:

Serving size: 1 zucchini boat
Calories: 274
Other nutrition information: Total Fat: 20g , Saturated Fat: 4.1g , Polyunsaturated Fat: 2.9g , Monounsaturated Fat: 10.6g , Cholesterol: 0mg , Sodium: 495mg , Potassium: 359mg , Total Carb: 19g , Dietary Fiber: 3.5g , Sugars: 6.7g , Protein: 7.8g

Recipe, images, and text © Veggie Balance

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