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Low Carb Middle Eastern Stuffed Zucchini

This easy low carb Middle Eastern stuffed zucchini is a family recipe that I just love. For a low carb dinner eat it  as is or serve with rice. It's an easy dish that uses all of the garden zucchini in the summer and it's stuffed with ground beef. Each stuffed zucchini boat has only 4.5g net carbs and 186 calories.

Course Main Course
Cuisine Middle Eastern
Keyword ground beef, stuffed zucchini
Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 50 minutes
Total Time 55 minutes
Servings 8
Calories 1886 kcal
Author Denise

Ingredients

  • 1 lb ground beef
  • ½ cup onion, minced
  • ½ teaspoon cinnamon
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ½ teaspoon pepper
  • 2 Tablespoons pine nuts
  • 4 medium zucchinis ***
  • 6 tablespoons tomato paste or tomato sauce
  • grated cheese to sprinkle on top (optional)

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. First clean you zucchinis by cutting in two length-wise. Using a melon baller or a spoon, clean out the zucchini so that there is about a ⅛ inch thickness to the skin left.
  3. Spray both sides of zucchinis with cooking spray or use olive oil and place in a baking dish.
  4. Broil for about 5-7 minutes on both sides. Watch so they don't burn!
  5. In the meantime, add ground beef, onion and spices to a sauté pan.
  6. When mixture is almost brown, add pine nuts.
  7. Saute for 3 more minutes then turn off and let cool a bit.

  8. Add meat mixture to stuff the zucchinis.

  9. Top with tomato sauce. I use a can of tomato paste mixed with a can of water because that is what my grandmother used to do. It has a sweeter taste and I like that but you can just use a can of tomato sauce if you prefer.
  10. Sprinkle with cheese and cook for 25-30 minutes in a 350 degree oven. Check that you can put a fork through the zucchini.
  11. Eat as is or serve with rice.

  12. **Note: This recipe is for 4 medium sized zucchini. I have recently used 1 huge zucchini and stuffed both halves which is shown in many of the new pictures as I'm updating this post. Please note that I think it tastes better with the 4 medium zucchinis but if you only have a huge one, that will work too. In that case you will want to bake the cleaned out zucchini instead of broiling and this might take up to 20 minutes. Then stuff it and follow the rest of the directions.