Stuffed Summer Squash with Skillet Sauce
Stuffed Summer Squash with Skillet Sauce | Plantivores | Vegan, gluten-free
You know those beautiful yellow or green globe summer squashes they have at the farmers market each year? The ones whose vibrant colors catch your eye and get you excited until you realize that you’re not exactly sure what to do with them? Yeah, I hear you, that used to be me too.
Stuffed Summer Squash with Skillet Sauce | Plantivores | Vegan, Gluten-free
One weekend at the farmer’s market I picked up a half-dozen or so and set out to figure out what to do with them. Then I found this new booth at the farmers market that was selling these nifty looking skillet sauces. They call them carne asada sauces but I’m sticking my fingers in my ears and pretending I didn’t see or hear anything referring to meat. Anyhow, my kids wanted to taste the sauce and the obligatory tortilla chips that always accompany such sauces at the farmers market. Let me tell you, this stuff (Organic Calle Major Skillet Sauce) was amazing!
Calle Major was started by a lovely couple who wanted to make an authentic Mexican carne asada sauce for a friend. They created these sauces that are “intensely tangy, mildly spicy, fresh herb infused, and do all the work of a Latin chef without the large time and ingredient investment”. Calle Mayor’s sauces use fresh, organic ingredients without relying on MSG, gluten, preservatives, or artificial thickeners. I thought, skip the meat, my veggies NEED this sauce! And then I thought about those lovely summer squashes I had just acquired and how I could make them new besties.
Calle Mayor Skillet Sauce | an intensely tangy, mildly spicy, fresh herb-infused, all-purpose sauce (vegan, gf)
So I went home to make something amazing with my new finds and yada yada yada*, Stuffed Summer Squash with Skillet Sauce made its inaugural appearance. And I love the alliteration I came up with too! This is one of those recipes that looks really fancy but doesn’t actually take that long to make. In fact, I even threw it together one night after work!
To save yourself time, pre-cut your veggies a few days before you want to make this dish. Put some rice in your rice steamer in the morning before work so it’s ready to go when you get home. The most time-consuming part of this recipe is scooping out the squash guts, so plan accordingly, but it’s not that bad.
This Stuffed Summer Squash with Skillet Sauce is really flexible, so if you don’t have Beyond Meat Beefy Crumbles or the Calle Major Skillet Sauce, don’t fret, but day-um, it is amazing!! You can leave out the beefy crumbles or substitute TVP (textured vegetable protein) instead. If you don’t have the skillet sauce, you could leave it off, use a store-bought salsa, or try this recipe for the Best.Salsa.Ever.
This is a beautiful (and really tasty!) dish that is sure to impress anyone. And as always, it is vegan and gluten-free.
Stuffed Summer Squash with Skillet Sauce | Plantivores | Vegan, Gluten-free
*Yada yada yada is a reference from the TV show Seinfeld. It is used to indicate that a whole bunch of stuff happened, but I’m not going to disclose what it was. 🙂
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Stuffed Summer Squash with Skillet Sauce
- Prep Time: 15 mins
- Cook Time: 35 mins
- Total Time: 50 mins
- Yield: 3-4 servings 1x
- Category: Main Course
- Cuisine: Mexican
- Diet: Vegan
Description
This stuffed summer squash with skillet sauce contains fresh veggies, hearty seasonings and is sure to satisfy both your taste buds and your stomach.
Ingredients
- 6 globe squash or zucchini (or about 8 medium sized zucchini) hollowed out
- 2 cups of steamed rice (brown, jasmine or basmati)
- 1 cup diced carrots
- 1 ½ cups diced bell pepper (any color combo you like: green, red, purple, orange or yellow)
- 1 jalapeno, seeded and diced (remove the white veins inside if you don’t want too much heat)
- 2 cups chopped squash insides (reserved from hollowing out the squash/zucchini)
- 1 cup Beyond Meat beefy crumbles (fiesta flavor or regular)
- 1 tsp ancho chili powder (or regular if you don’t have ancho)
- ½ tsp smoked paprika
- ½ tsp granulated garlic powder
- ½ tsp granulated onion powder
- ¼ tsp salt
- Lemon rind and juice from a half lemon
- ¼ cup pine nuts
- 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
- Pepper to taste
- 2 cups Calle Major Organic Skillet Sauce or salsa
Instructions
- Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or non-stick aluminum foil.
- Scoop out squash/zucchini (reserve the flesh and chop for later use). To scoop out the squash, slice across the top a bit less than ¼ from the top. Take a spoon and gently scoop out the inner flesh, saving it into a bowl. Be careful not to poke a hole in the sides or the bottom with aggressive digging (I *might* know something about this first hand ).
- Place the now hollowed out squash/zucchini on the baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes, or until a knife easily pierces the flesh.
- While the squash is baking, add the carrots, peppers, jalapeno and squash guts to a large sauce pan and saute on medium heat. You can add one or two tablespoons of water or veggie broth to prevent sticking but the squash guts will release a lot of water so you may not need to.
- Saute for 2 minutes, and then add the Beyond Meat Beefy Crumbles, ancho chili powder, smoked paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, salt and lemon zest/juice. Stir to combine.
- Continue to heat on medium, stirring here and there, until the carrots and peppers soften a bit, usually about 5-8 minutes.
- Taste and adjust seasonings.
- Remove from heat, add the pine nuts and cilantro.
- Mix the veggie filling with the rice in a large bowl.
- Stuff filling into each squash. You may have left over filling, which is fine. Just eat it like that!
- Bake uncovered for 20-25 minutes or until warm. If you are short on time, you can skip this step with no ill effects.
- Remove from oven and ladle some sauce/salsa over each squash. Put back in the oven for a few minutes until the sauce/salsa is heated through.
- Serve hot.
- Enjoy!
Stuffed Summer Squash without skillet sauce. Still delicious!
