Mmmmmm…..can we talk about my love of all things Italian food?  I am pretty sure I have never met an Italian food that I didn’t like.  I could live on pasta alone, in fact when I was pregnant with my daughter, I pretty much did live on pasta.  Anything else made me queasy.  It wasn’t the healthiest of pregnancy diets but eating something was better than eating nothing.  Now that I am done growing babies in my belly and my kids no longer need to be supervised every second of the day, I have been making a lot of changes to healthier and cleaner eating.  Pasta is by far the hardest food for me to give up.  I have found some great substitutes, protein fortified pasta, whole wheat pasta and my new favorite…replacing pasta with zucchini.  So I am excited to be able to share with you a healthy and clean version of ravioli.  It is not as easy as a bag of ravioli from the frozen section of your grocery store but ten times easier than making them from scratch with sheets of pasta.  And I don’t even think you will notice that we have substituted the zucchini for the pasta!

First let’s gather all our ingredients:  2 medium zucchini, 1 c. low fat ricotta cheese, 1/2 c. low fat shredded mozzarella cheese (plus more to sprinkle on top), 1/4 c. grated parmesan cheese, 1 large egg, 1 tsp. chopped garlic, 1/2 t. salt, 1/4 t. black pepper, 1 T. chopped fresh basil leaves, 1 jar of your favorite pasta sauce.  Preheat your over to 350 degrees F.

On to prep the zucchini.  I always make sure to give my zucchini a nice cleanse with a vegetable brush.  Cut off the top and bottom of the zucchini.  Now we are going to slice the zucchini into thin strips.  This can be done with a mandolin or a vegetable peeler with a long blade.  This is the mandoline slicer I use https://amzn.to/2P0zDbJ .  When you are looking for a mandoline I think the most important thing to look for is one that slices straight down without a lip at the bottom.  If there is a lip it is going to be harder to slice long vegetables like zucchini and eggplant.

You are now ready to make the mixture.  Combine ricotta, mozzarella, parmesan, egg, garlic, salt, pepper and basil in a bowl.  Mix well all the ingredients well.  Spray a 9″x13″ casserole dish with cooking spray and place a thin layer of sauce on the bottom.

Now the fun begins.  Lay 2 slices of zucchini vertically slightly overlapping.  Then lay 2 additional slices of zucchini horizontally crossing over the middle of the vertical zucchini.  You should have what looks like a plus sign.  Place 2 T. of the filling in the middle of the zucchini, where the 4 pieces meet.  Then fold the horizontal pieces toward the middle followed by the vertical pieces.

You now have a perfect little zucchini packet.  Place in a casserole dish then repeat for remaining zucchini slices.  I got about 12 ravioli out of my slices and mixture.  Sprinkle a little of the extra shredded mozzarella on top.  Cover the casserole dish and place in over to bake for about 30 minutes.

When they are done baking you will have a dish that looks a little something like this!  I promise these won’t last long.  And if they do, they freeze well to be heated up another time.

If you are like my family and need to have meat with every dinner, my Sunday Sauce meatballs make a great accompaniment.  You can find the recipe here https://wp.me/p9vEUW-E.  I hope you enjoy this dish as much as we do.

XO,

Danelle

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