Southwest Stuffed Zucchini Boats
with Plant-based Protein, Pico de Gallo & Avocado Crema
- Milk
Send your taste buds on a flavorful cruise—a yacht to Yumtown, if you will—with this crowd-pleasing stuffed zucchini. These boats are filled with Southwest-spiced rice, then blanketed with a layer of kickin’ pepper jack cheese, and finished with fresh pico de gallo, avocado crema, cilantro, sour cream, and hot sauce. There’s something about this recipe that’ll really put the wind back in your sails.
Ingredients
1 unit
Veggie Stock Concentrate
1 unit
Onion
4 tablespoon
Sour Cream
2 unit
Zucchini
½ cup
Jasmine Rice
1 unit
Lemon
½ cup
Pepper Jack Cheese
(Contains: Milk)
1 unit
Tomato
4 tablespoon
Guacamole
1 tablespoon
Southwest Spice Blend
¼ ounce
Cilantro
1 teaspoon
Hot Sauce
Not included in your delivery
2 teaspoon (tsp)
Cooking Oil
Nutrition Values
Utensils
Cooking Steps
• Adjust rack to top position and preheat oven to 450 degrees. Wash and dry produce. • Halve, peel, and finely dice onion. Trim and halve zucchini lengthwise; scoop out and discard seeds with a spoon.
• Heat a drizzle of olive oil in a medium pot over medium-high heat. Add ¾ of the onion; season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring, until softened, 4-5 minutes. • Add rice and Southwest Spice; stir to coat. • Stir in stock concentrate, 1¼ cups water (2¼ cups for 4 servings), and a big pinch of salt. Bring to a boil, then cover and reduce to a low simmer. Cook until rice is tender, 15-18 minutes. • Keep covered off heat until ready to use in step 5.
• While rice cooks, season zucchini with a drizzle of olive oil, salt, and pepper; rub to evenly coat. Arrange, cut sides down, on a baking sheet. • Roast on top rack until browned and tender, 15-20 minutes.
• Meanwhile, dice tomato. Roughly chop cilantro. Zest and halve lemon. • In a small bowl, combine tomato, half the cilantro, a squeeze of lemon juice to taste, and as much remaining onion as you like. Season with salt and pepper. • In a separate small bowl, combine guacamole, lemon zest, and half the sour cream (save the rest for serving). Add a squeeze of lemon juice to taste. Season with salt and pepper. Add water 1 tsp at a time until mixture reaches a drizzling consistency.
• Once zucchini are tender, remove sheet from oven. Heat broiler to high. • Fluff rice with a fork and season with salt and pepper. TIP: Stir in 1 TBSP butter (2 TBSP for 4 servings) for extra richness. • Carefully flip zucchini and stuff with as much rice as will fit (there will be plenty left over; save for serving). Evenly top with pepper jack. • Broil until cheese is melted and lightly browned, 2-3 minutes. TIP: Watch carefully to avoid burning.
• Divide remaining rice between plates and top with stuffed zucchini. Top with avocado crema, pico de gallo, remaining cilantro, and remaining sour cream. Drizzle with hot sauce if desired and serve.
Customer reviews
Review summary
Updated on Feb 2026- Flavor: Many loved the delicious blend of Southwest spices, zesty pico, and creamy avocado sauce 🌶️.
- Ease of prep: Some found it time-consuming with many steps, while others thought it was simple to make.
- Suggestions: Consider adding black beans, corn, or a protein like chicken for extra heartiness and texture.
- Portions: Several wished for larger zucchini to hold more filling; some felt hungry after and wanted more food.
- Texture: A few found the zucchini got mushy; consider adjusting cook time or adding crunchy toppings.
Reviews from our home cooks
Really good recipe although the inside of the boat (rice and onion) needed more to it - maybe bell peppers, black beans, or some type of protein. Rice wasn't spicy enough so added extra cumin and taco spices. The pico de gallo and avocado crema were good and really made the recipe come together. Not a 5 minute prep - more like 15-20 depending on your quickness with and delicacy with hollowing out zucchini.
Taste was great! Accidentally used my shrimp packet instead of plant-based protein. They made the zucchini boats overflow, but the taste was great. I'll admit, though, I thought the prep and cooking times would be shorter than they were. Altogether, making the dish took an intense hour and a half. But the result was great.
The provided zucchinis were small (got smaller after baking) and hard to stuff, but all the ingredients made for a lovely southwest zucchini bowl! Also my southwest spice blend packet was empty so I had to Google my own blend and make it.
I've made this delicious recipe a few times--sooo good! These zucchini boats are very flavorful and simple to make. I like to customize with some cayenne or Serrano peppers added to the mix. De-lish
The zucchini boats were a nice change for a vessel for the filling. If I make again, will need to watch the temp on cooking the zucchini. They got too soft. Great flavors even without meat.
This is a great recipe to tweak with extra veggies or spices- and I always chop up and roast the middle part of the zucchini to add to the rice mixture. Really filling and easy to make!
Great low calorie option. Avocado crema gave a good cooling contrast to the southwest flavor.
Way better than I expected! The pico de gallo was simple and zesty. Zucchini gave it a light and refreshing taste.
Delicious, I've never really liked zucchini before, but now look forward to recipes with it.
The zucchini's that I received were ridiculously small and too tiny to even fill. The recipe called for way too much water for the rice so it turned out mushy and I had to cook it a lot longer than the recipe directions. This would be much better with added ground beef or pork.
