We are obviously very into lasagna rollups. Evidence below:
We love them – but we all know you can’t just eat pasta every night and fit into your pants. So we made a low-carb zucchini lasagna roll ups version for all you people who, like us, want to eat pasta every damn day, but can’t. Off topic kinda, I really just want to eat the pasta everyday that they swirl in a giant parmesan wheel, lol.
Anyway, we also made these with turkey sausage and ground turkey – no beef here! This is one of those rare occasions where I don’t actually miss the pasta – because a lot of other flavors are going on and totally on point. You can totally make your own marinara sauce and use it for this recipe. We looovvvveee our Marinara Sauce recipe (you can freeze it too!) If you’re like us and want things as quick as easy as possible we recommend just buying your favorite brand at the grocery store. Hope you try our Zucchini Lasagna Roll Ups, they’re insanely good!
If you’re wondering if this recipe freezes well, yes it does! Since you’re seasoning your zucchini strips in salt before rolling them up, you’re drawing water out of them. This means they won’t turn into a liquified pile of mush when you bake them. So when you freeze them, I just recommend wrapping the dish tightly (pre-bake) before sticking them in the freezer.
♥ Teri
If you LOVE roll ups – try our breakfast versions!!
Zucchini Lasagna Roll Ups
INGREDIENTS
filling
- 2 ½ tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided
- ½ pound Italian turkey sausage
- ½ pound lean ground turkey
- ½ small onion, finely diced
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 tablespoon minced basil
- 1 ½ teaspoons minced oregano
- 1 ½ teaspoons minced thyme
- 1 cup part skim ricotta
- 1 large egg white, beaten until frothy
- ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese plus more for garnish
- salt and pepper to taste
roll ups
- 4 large zucchini, ends trimmed
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 4 to 5 fresh basil leaves
- 3 cups marinara sauce or marinara of choice
INSTRUCTIONS
- Preheat oven to 375˚F.
- For filling: Pour 1 ½ tablespoons oil into a large skillet and place over medium-high heat. Add sausage and ground turkey and brown for 4 to 5 minutes, breaking up into small piece with a wooden spoon.
- Strain meat from skillet and place into a large mixing bowl. Set aside.
- Drain grease from skillet and place back over medium-high heat. Add remaining oil and sauté onion for 3 to 4 minute. Add garlic and herbs and continue to sauté for an additional 2 minutes.
- Transfer mixture to bowl with the meat and allow mixture to cool, about 15 minutes.
- Add remaining filling ingredients into the mixing bowl, season with salt and pepper and stir together until fully combined. (if mixture is too soft, refrigerate for 1 hour to firm up)
- Using a potato peeler, peel thin, long strips from each zucchini, lengthwise.
- Spread zucchini strips onto a baking sheet in a single layer and season with tablespoon of salt. Allow zucchini to sit for 20 minutes. Lightly pat zucchini dry.
- To assemble: Pour and evenly spread 2 cups marinara sauce into the bottom of a 9”X12” baking dish. Stir ½ cup marinara sauce into the filling mixture.
- Spread about 2 tablespoons of the filling mixture evenly over the top of one of the sliced zucchini sheets and tightly roll the zucchini into a tightly coil. Place filled and rolled zucchini into the baking dish, coil side up.
- Repeat step 9 until all of the zucchini strips and filling have been used and the baking dish is filled.
- Top dish with the remaining marinara sauce and a sprinkle of Parmesan and bake for about 20 minutes or until the dish is bubbling and the top has lightly browned. (Place entire dish under broiler for 1 minute if a crispier top is desired)
- Top dish with another sprinkle of grated Parmesan and fresh basil leaves and serve.
Did you make this recipe? We want to see!
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Hello! Since I often have some meat sauce ready in the freezer, can you tell me how much I would need, before adding the other filling ingredients? Thanks!
Delicious – but 45 minutes total time is a laugh. Peeling the zucchini alone took 20, and then 20 minutes to dry. My bad for not reading the whole thing ahead of time – I didn’t quite have the patience for this on a weeknight!
Agree!!! Made this tonight…absolutely delicious! However……takes muchhhh longer to prep than the recipe states. Also in my experience…I used (almost) 2 zucchinis before I ran out of filling…only filled up half of the baking pan size that was recommended…I would 100% recommend this recipe to anyone it was so yummy…however beware it takes 3+ times as long to prep as stated, and I used 2 zucchini and should have used a smaller baking pan. My husband loved it which was the best part of all!
So delicious! I used Italian sausage instead of the turkey just to make it a bit quicker and I like spice! Such a great recipe! Thank you…..
really like these, I certainly don’t need the pasta so love the zucchini, love all of the other flavors too, thank you for this recipe!
This looks great! Since the zucchini is not pre-blanched or salted, does this casserole not come out watery?
I tried all versions for this recipe + I didn’t have any issues with wateriness for any of them, so opted to leave the salting/blanching out to save on a bit of time :)