Zucchini Parmesan Recipe (2024)

My CSA has not been providing many tomatoes so I used high quality canned diced tomatoes and skipped the food mill, but I otherwise followed this recipe and it was utterly amazing. I could've eaten it all by myself! So if you're looking for a quicker version, try good canned tomatoes!

It's so good that it's on my top 10 vegetable side dishes of all time list. Make the sauce from scratch the night before and it won't seem like as much work. It's easy and the fresh tomatoes make a HUGE difference. I roast the zucchini for about 30 minutes until they are on the verge of crispy to avoid the sog factor when baking. I love this dish. I think about this dish. I crave this dish. Make this dish.

I wish that recipe writers would indicate something other than or in addition to weight. In this case, couldn't there be an indication of how many cups of chopped up and/or strained tomatoes there should be? Not everyone has a kitchen scale or room for one.

Recommendations:
A layer of ricotta mixed with an egg to the middle layer. adds more protein and makes this a great main course. And if I have any mozzarella around, a little will usually find its way onto the top!
Can use canned tomatoes.

Try slicing, salting, draining the zucchini THEN roasting (to eliminate water ... or my favorite, GRILLING IT prior to assembling. Grilling will give the casserole a wonderfully rich additional layer of flavor and make a convert out of those zuke-haters too.

Made this with eggplant and zucchini and it was delicious as promised. I was short on time and skipped the peeling, seeding, and chopping of the tomatoes - nice but not necessary for a delicious home-cooked meal. In a convection oven I only needed 17 minutes 'til bubbling and ready to eat.
Thanks Martha!

After trying this recipe several times with watery results, I used ideas from these notes and it worked! I salted the zucchini and let it sit for an hour on racks on cookie sheets, rinsed and dried them,then oiled them lightly, added the pepper flakes and salt. After roasting for 30 minutes, they were drier and firmer. Adding a sprinkling of bread crumbs on top of each layer helped too. Finally, I doubled the recipe, using 3 cans of plum tomatoes. The result was 2” high, sliceable and tasty.

I just made this. If you want browned zucchini, don't use the parchment and oil the pan as well as the zucchini.

I LOVE this! I'm making it tonight (for the fifth time, I think). I use good jarred sauce and it's absolutely a wonderful dish. True, the zuke doesn't really get crisp.
Tonight it's a main rather than a side, and I sneaked in some freshly steamed spinach and a wee bit of mozzarella (trying to get a little more iron into my husband). Can't wait! I also sent this one to everyone.

The tomato sauce turned out nicely, but it was pretty labor intensive for a dish that—while delicious!—ended up more "zucchini in sauce" than "zucchini bake." Red pepper flakes were an awesome touch, though. I'd make it again with premade sauce.

Next time I do this, which will be soon, I will dry the zuc's in a slow oven for about 30 min. then roast until brown. Otherwise the rest stays the same. Great dish.

Excellent ATK has a very similar recipe,they suggest using the microwave to drive off the extra water in the Zuch...and I do think that works better than roasting...quick and no fuss... Just remember to put the Zuch on paper towels and a minute or two your ready to assemble

Absolutely delicious and a bit of change from the eggplant parm. The zucchini never quite browned even after 20 minutes - I broiled for about 5 mins to get a bit of color. But the final dish was fab and it didn't quite matter to have browned zucchini after all!

I roasted the zucchini for 30 minutes until browned and I added ricotta and egg as suggested by another commenter. A hit! It was a little soggy, so I’m pre-salting and draining the zucchini on the next go round (today!).

So I did a follow a few suggestions, I salted the zucchini and summer squash( I used this as well) to remove water then cooked till crispier. I also cooled down my sauce significantly, I used some home grown tomatoes that may have been over watered. I also added the ricotta egg mixture as one layer. What I really wanted to do was eat some cold, like one commenter suggested…. But I couldn’t because we ate it all! Amazingly yummy

I used canned tomatoes instead as the mill was very difficult to use and tomatoes now are out of season and lacking flavor. I used ricotta with an egg as suggested by some previous reviewer. The zucchini too much longer than 12 minutes to even start to get brown at 450 so I gave it 6 min more, but I think in order to get this right, you need to flip the pieces 1/2 way through. The dish overall came out VERY watery so I am not sure if I would make this again.

Tasty but a little watery even after I salted and drained the zucchini. Also patted them dry before roasting. Added ricotta + egg. Topped with a little extra mozzarella.

Loved this dish; it tasted even better the second day. We added the Parmesan cheese rind to the sauce as it cooked (remove before using) and it tasted creamy and amazing. We didn’t seed the tomatoes, but ran the sauce through a blender before assembling. Great way to use up a big zucchini.

Despite the list of ingredients being quite short, I still had few of them on hand. Here are the adjustments I made (and I can’t wait to make it again!)- top quality dried basil instead of fresh- used a can of whole San Marzano tomatoes instead of fresh (saved the leftover sauce for a side of fresh pasta)- I only had a bit of parm. reg. so I added it together with gruyère and pecorino romano.Everyone loved it! It took longer than anticipated but it was delicious!

Added Kite Hill Ricotta and buffalo mozzarella

This is a great recipe especially if you have a bumper crop of zucchini. I followed the suggestions of several other cooks and used a (fresh) store-bought sauce, layered the zucchini with the ricotta mix and topped it with mozzarella. Served with warm crusty baguette and yummmmm

Bake at what temp?

This was delicious! I put ricotta mixed with an egg in the middle and added mozzarella on the top. I am slightly embarrassed to admit that I used sauce from a jar but this minimized the time to prepare the dish.

I’m sure it’s delicious but 10,432 steps for zucchini in sauce? Pazzo.

So, don't think I will ale again. Zucchini was so watery and limp, spent 20 min on 450, nothing, then used the broiler for 2 minutes at a clip and I am on my 5th or 6th cycle... I normally read the comments but in this case it sounded so easy, I didn't. Lesson learned! Lol!!

how do you peel tomatoes???

This was very delicious. I used roma and small tomatoes from my garden and didn't peel them, just threw into the pot chopped. I then blended on low in my vitamix and it was delicious. I also salted my zucchini and set up to dry before I baked. If I made again, I would use more zucchinis like 3-4 midsize to have more layers and not cut quite as thin. But it was very good.

I snuck a layer of mozzarella in the the second time around and much preferred it.