italian summer casserole: baked zucchini, brown rice and tomato sauce with sausage
Use half of your sausage and sauce mixture for another dinner this week. Stuffed peppers? Pasta? Up to you!
Ingredients
Scale
- 3/4 pound sweet Italian sausage
- 1 jar of your favorite pasta sauce
- 2 cups cooked brown rice
- 2 medium zucchini, cut into long thin strips (with a knife, mandolin or vegetable peeler)
- 2 tablespoons dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
- 1– 1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
- 1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400.
- In a large skillet, brown sausage and add sauce. Set aside half for another dinner another night. Use the remaining sauce with sausage and cooked rice for the recipe below.
- In a 9×9 glass pan, add a small dollop of tomato sauce to the bottom of the pan, just to prevent sticking. Layer zucchini, completely covering the bottom of the pan. If your ribbons are very thin, add two layers of zucchini. Top with rice then sprinkle with oregano, salt and pepper. Sprinkle a handful of mozzarella cheese on top then add enough red sauce to cover the whole thing. Repeat until you’ve used everything, probably 3-4 layers total. Sprinkle the top layer with the Parmesan cheese, a bit of salt and pepper plus oregano. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes.
- Remove foil and bake for 15-20 minutes. Let sit for 10 minutes before serving.