Zucchini Pizza Boats

Easy, cheesy zucchini pizza boats are the perfect recipe to make your family cheer for zucchini! Made in about 30 minutes, this delicious recipe is perfect as a main dish or side dish, and is really easy to customize for each person’s favorite pizza toppings like pepperoni, ham, sausage or peppers!

 

Why We Love Zucchini Pizza Boats

• Easy Delicious Way To Enjoy Vegetables – My kid is always up for anything pizza flavored, it’s a great way to serve veggies to the whole family.
• Can Be A Side Dish Or A Main Dish – These zucchini pizza boats are filling enough to be the main dish event, but are a great side dish. I’ll often serve these as the main dish one night, and leftovers cut in half as a side dish.
• Great For Summer Zucchini – Zucchini is the summer is not only plentiful, it’s fresh and budget-friendly. Use zucchini from your garden, or from the grocery when zucchini is flowing!

Ingredients For Zucchini Pizza Boats

• medium zucchini about 8 inches long. You can use zucchini that is bigger or smaller, but you may need to watch the final cook time a little closer. A bigger zucchini will take a little longer to cook, and a smaller zucchini may be done cooking quicker.
•  garlic powder
• salt
• pepper
• marinara sauce – you can use your favorite tomato sauce, we area big fan of Rao’s sauce. You can also use pizza sauce which is a little thicker.
• mozzarella cheese shredded, you can use a provolone or an Italian blend of cheese too.
• mini pepperoni – you can use regular pepperoni also and just slice them into four pieces.
• Italian seasoning

See the notes in the variations section for more toppings ideas to help you customize your zucchini pizza boats. Sometimes I’ll add a little parmesan cheese or cracked red pepper flakes to the top before cooking the zucchini boats, yum!

How To Make Zucchini Pizza Boats

1. Preheat the oven to 375. Spray two 9 x 13 baking pans generously with oil.
2. Rinse and dry the zucchini. Cut the zucchini in half longwise. With a large spoon, scoop out the seeds and some pulp from the zucchini to make the zucchini shells. Place zucchini halves in the baking pans, lining them up in a row.

3. Mix garlic powder, salt and pepper in a small bowl. Sprinkle garlic powder mixture evenly over all of the zucchini halves.

4. Spoon marinara sauce evenly into each zucchini. Sprinkle the tops of each zucchini evenly with mozzarella cheese.

5. Add pepperoni or your favorite pizza toppings on top of the cheese. Sprinkle Italian seasoning over all zucchini evenly.

6. Bake zucchini for 25-30 minutes or until the zucchini is soft when pricked with a fork, and the cheese is fully melted. Then enjoy!

Pizza Topping Ideas For This Zucchini Pizza Boat Recipe

You can make these zucchini pizza boats as fancy or as simple as you like. Add your favorite pizza toppings to make these pizza boats your own. It’s also a great way to use up leftover pieces of meat and vegetables in the fridge.

The trick is to dice all of your ingredients small so they fit in the pizza boats. We like to use our favorite vegetable chopper to make chopping vegetables fast. When I first bought it, it sat in the box for about 3 months… I’m not really proud of that! But when I finally pulled it out of the box I wondered why I waited so long! Now my husband and I use this chopper several times a week, and you can use it to shred your cheese too.

Here are a few other flavor combination ideas.

• Supreme Style Pizza Boats – pepperoni, sausage, onions, green peppers, and black olives make a great combo! Mushrooms optional!
• Meatlovers Pizza Boats – Pepperoni, sausage, and bacon or ham makes a hearty combo!
• Sausage Mushroom – As simple as it sounds, chop up pieces of sausage and mushrooms from a great flavor combo.
• Chicken Basil Pesto – Toss diced chicken in basil pesto, then add it before you add the cheese. Top with diced onions and diced tomatoes. You can choose to use the marinara or let the pesto be the sauce base.
• Hawaiian Style Pizza Boats – Try chopped ham (even lunch meat works!), pineapple and diced purple onion.

So many flavor combination possibilities, don’t be afraid to let your imagination (or your fridge leftovers, ha!) help guide you. You can also use a dipping sauce like this Pizza Dipping Sauce for even more fun.

Can You Freeze Zucchini Pizza Boats?

Freezing these zucchini pizza boats is not the best idea. While leftovers that have been refrigerated usually tastes great, the zucchini tends to become mushy if you freeze it.

Can Yo Make Zucchini Pizza Boats Ahead Of Time?

Yes you can prep these zucchini pizza boats up to 24 hours in advance before you bake. Longer then about 24 hours tends to make the zucchini more mushy.

How Long Will Pizza Zucchini Boats Last?

Expect these zucchini pizza boats will last for about 3-4 day if stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

I like to reheat these in the oven or in the fryer. In the oven it takes about 15-18 minutes at 375 degrees to reheat, and in the air fryer it takes about 13-15 minutes at 350 degrees, or until they are warm all the way through.