Recipe for Zucchini Boats

This Recipe for Zucchini Boats is the perfect way to pack in more veggies during mealtime! Loaded with fresh herbs and protein-rich sunflower seeds, this Recipe for Zucchini Boats is nutrient-dense, and full of flavor!

This recipe is dairy, gluten, grain, and nut-free, making it the perfect allergy-friendly option everyone can indulge in! Ready to learn more? Keep reading!

Recipe for Zucchini Boats

While there are all sorts of zucchini boat recipes online, they pretty much all call for scooping out the insides of the zucchini and then mixing with some sort of filling (often cheese or meat.) But I’ve found you can get the same results with less hassle. I do this by skipping the scooping part and taking a few minutes to pan-grill the zucchini instead. And you don’t need to add cheese or meat either…

Zucchini is a high summer crop that keeps producing late into fall in warm regions. As long as your zucchini is super fresh, nature gives us permission to keep preparation simple. My zucchini boat recipe is as simple as it is healthy.

Healthy Zucchini Boats

Like mentioned above, many zucchini boat recipes are stuffed with meat and cheese. Here at Clean Cuisine, we like to follow a plant-forward diet, and firmly believe that milk is not beneficial for our bodies, but instead, can actually be harmful (click here to read why we believe this). Because of this, we swapped the meat and cheese for a rich and savory filling made with sunflower seeds, and a burst of delicious, vegan cheesy flavor.

Vegan Cheese

You might be wondering how we made this recipe “cheesy” without any dairy. The secret to making delicious, dairy-free cheesy dishes is nutritional yeast! Nutritional yeast is different than baking yeast because it is inactive. This means that it does not feed on sugars in your body, or promote candida albicans, which is a yeast-like fungus that lives in the digestive tract. For this reason, those who are advised to avoid yeast (most always this refers to “active” yeast) can almost always tolerate nutritional yeast. Nutritional yeast melts, and has a mild cheddar cheese flavor that marries magically well with the sunflower seeds, and other ingredients. Use this in all of your dishes where you’d normally use cheese, and you won’t miss cheese one bit!

Want some extra cheesy flavor? Try our Vegan Cheese Recipe by clicking here!

If you’re looking for a way to spruce up your veggie dishes, this Recipe for Zucchini Boats helps make eating veggies way more exciting! Let’s get into the recipe!

Recipe for Zucchini Boats

Print Recipe

Loaded with fresh herbs and protein-rich sunflower seeds, this Recipe for Zucchini Boats is nutrient-dense, and full of flavor!

• Author: Ivy Larson
• Prep Time: 10 mins
• Cook Time: 10 mins
• Total Time: 20 mins
• Category: Side Dish
• Method: Skillet
• Cuisine: American
• Diet: Vegan

Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

• Zucchini Boats
• 1/4 cup sunflower seeds, can sub for pine nuts
• 1/3 cup julienned sundried tomatoes
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 tablespoon non-fortified nutritional yeast
• 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil, plus more for skillet
• 3 zucchini, halved lengthwise
• Unrefined Sea salt, to taste

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. Place the pine nuts, sundried tomatoes, garlic cloves, nutritional yeast, oregano and 1 teaspoon of the olive oil in a mini food processor; process until well blended and crumbly. Set mixture aside.
3. Season the cut side of the zucchini with salt. Lightly coat a heavy oven-proof skillet with a very thin layer of extra virgin olive oil and heat the skillet over medium heat.
4. Place the zucchini onto the hot skillet, cut side down. Use your finger tips to lightly press the zucchini into the skillet and cook for about 3 minutes. Turn the zucchini over and cook the other side for about 2 minutes, or until zucchini begins to soften and lightly caramelize. Remove the skillet from the heat.
5. Turn the zucchini back over, cut side up, and divide the crumbly topping on top of each zucchini half. Transfer zucchini to the oven and bake for 4 minutes, or until just tender (be careful not to over bake.) Serve warm.

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