afoona
Zucchini Stuffed with Meat and Rice with Cinnamon and Sweet Paprika
Meat

Zucchini Stuffed with Meat and Rice with Cinnamon and Sweet Paprika

Zucchini stuffed with ground meat and rice in tomato sauce — a comforting traditional Middle Eastern dish

⏱ 1 hr 15 min🍽 4 servings 🌍 Middle Eastern👩‍🍳 Afoona🧩 2 parts
🥩 Meat🌾 Gluten-free🧀 Shavuot

👨‍🍳 Method

For the Meatball mix

  1. 1
    Mix the ground meat with the onion, garlic, parsley, cumin, paprika, cinnamon, rice, salt and black pepper until evenly combined.

To assemble

  1. 2
    Halve the zucchini lengthwise and scoop out the insides with a teaspoon, leaving walls of about 1 cm.
    KnifeCutting board
  2. 3
    Fill the zucchini with the mixture up to ¾ full: the rice swells as it cooks.
    💡Fill only three-quarters full: the uncooked rice swells inside the vegetable, and a full filling gets pushed out.
  3. 4
    Arrange the zucchini, now stuffed, in a wide pot.
    Wide, shallow pot
  4. 5
    Mix the stock, tomatoes, tomato paste, sugar and salt and pour over the zucchini.
  5. 6
    Heat in a wide pot and sauté the chopped caps 0 minutes. Add the tomato paste, stock, tomatoes, sugar and salt and stir until the paste dissolves.
    ⚙ SimmeringStoveLid
    💡A gentle simmer, not a boil: a hard boil dries the food out and clouds it, a slow simmer cooks it evenly.
457calories
22 gprotein
52 gcarbs
16 gfat
● protein 20%● carbs 47%● fat 33%

Per serving (618 g), of 4 servings

For the Meatball mix · To assemble ·

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⚖ About the ingredients

🔧 Tools needed (5) · 🍳 One cooking vessel

  • Stove · 💡 Workaround, changes the dish: Portable hot plate (one weaker burner) · Camping gas stove (One burner, outdoors) · Electric pressure cooker (multicooker) (One pot, no real shallow frying)
  • Lid · Also works: Aluminum foil (tight aluminum foil) · Plate (an upside-down plate)
  • Wide, shallow pot · Also works: Deep skillet (sauté pan) (None) · 💡 Workaround, changes the dish: Pot (Layers instead of a single layer)
  • Cutting board · Also works: Plate (Large plate, dulls the knife)
  • Knife · Also works: Food processor (Fast, less control over size) · Kitchen shears (For herbs/dough)

By the steps, as the recipe is built now: another version or addition can change the list.

🧩 Built from…

Meatball mix → Stuffed vegetables

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