Keto Cheesy Beef & Zucchini Bake is my favorite way to have a cheesy ground beef & zucchini dish with lots of zesty and chunky sauce (homemade, of course). You can take the shortcut way to make this with jarred store-bought sauce, or you can use your favorite slow-cooked homemade Ragù alla Bolognese or marinara (which is the way I do it – recipe on page 86 of my KETOLISHUS ebook). Hope you enjoy this dish as much as I do!
INGREDIENTS
1 lb zucchini, washed, and sliced into bite-size pieces
Salt for the zucchini
1 lb ground beef (I use 80/20 or 85/15)
1 tablespoon olive oil, butter, or tallow
2 cups your favorite chunky marinara OR meat sauce
2-3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella, divided
DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 400 F
Take your zucchini slices and put them into a bowl with room to stir or toss. Sprinkle salt over the slices and stir or toss them to coat salt on every piece.
Spread the pieces onto a wire rack with paper towel laid underneath, or a sheet pan that fits the rack, and let the zucchini rest for about 30 minutes or so, to let the salt draw out the moisture.
While the zucchini is resting, get out a skillet and on medium-high heat, brown your ground beef, breaking it into bits while you go.
Optional step: I like to add a little olive oil, tallow, or butter into the pan and saute some coarsely-diced onion once the meat starts browning, and cook until the onion is slightly soft. You can also add mushrooms at this point. If you are using a very chunky marinara or meat sauce with everything you want, you can skip this step.
Continue to cook until there’s no more moisture in the pan, and the meat has gotten some nicely-browned and slightly crisp edges.
Add in your 2 cups of sauce, half a cup of the mozzarella, and stir it into the meat to combine.
In one 9×13 baking dish (or two smaller baking dishes), spread out the zucchini pieces, and pour the cooked meat & sauce mixture over, spreading it out to cover all the zucchini (or you can combine all together instead of spreading over the zucchini, I’ve done it both ways). Top with the 2 tablespoons grated Parm.
Bake for 30 minutes to start, then take out of the oven, sprinkle the remaining 1 cup mozzarella over the top, and the return to the oven to bake until the cheese has melted and is golden & bubbly.
Makes 4 servings & GREAT leftovers, reheated (or cold)
