I made this recipe last Friday and I am sorry that it took so long for me to get up because so many people have been asking for it. It’s low-carb, plant-based, gluten-free, delicious and sooooo pretty!
Plus it is way easier than it looks- I promise!
My friend Colleen made something similar looking a few weeks ago on insta stories and it was dripping in REAL cheese! It looked so good to me and so I decided that I would definitely have to figure out how to make a dairy-free version pretty quickly. I had stocked up on almonds at Trader Joes before we went into lockdown because I knew that I would wind up needing some major comfort food like lasagna and Enchiladas and every other thing that I could think of to put ricotta on.
So one pound of homemade almond soft ricotta with garlic later, the rest was a cakewalk. I have made this twice now, once with homemade tomato sauce and another time with store-bought tomato sauce. We went the plant-based route but you could totally add ground turkey or beef or even shredded chicken. Plant-based additions could look like mushrooms or caramelized onions.
While this looks like a very high-maintenance dish, I promise that it only took about ten minutes to assemble this. You just want to make sure that your tomato sauce and ricotta are well seasoned before you begin and that you are able to slice the zucchini thinly enough- I used a mandolin for this.
It makes a delicious entree on its own, it could also be a lovely side dish if you wanted to serve it with a protein on the side too. My kids wanted gluten-free pasta served with theirs, and they topped the noodles with the zucchini, ricotta and sauce (like a deconstructed lasagna!)
Also, I will add that it just weirdly perfectly turned out that the three medium-large zucchini sliced paper thin (Trader joes sells zucchini in a three-pack) and the one pound of almond ricotta (which came from two packs of the Trader Joes 8-ounce raw slivered almonds) made the exact right amount of these to fill the pan with no extra zucchini or ricotta left over!
- 3 cups marinara (homemade or store bought is fine)
- 3 medium-large zucchini, sliced lengthways paperthin with a mandolin or a very sharp knife
- 1 pound homemade soft almond ricotta with garlic
- Kosher salt and black pepper
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees
- (I used a 8x12 baking dish.) Pour the marinara into the bottom of the baking pan.
- Use each slice of zucchini and place 1- 2 teaspoons of the homemade ricotta on the fat end of the slice and roll it up. Place the rolled zucchini into the baking dish on its end. Continue with all of the sices and the ricotta until the whole dish is filled. Sprinkle the top with kosher salt and plack pepper and drizzle with the olive oil.
- Bake the dish for 30 minutes and take out when the cheese is getting a little golden and the sauce is bubbling and the zucchini is tender.
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These look and sound fantastic! I swear you should be the star spokesperson for Trader Joe’s. I’ve been making something they sampled back when there was samples; package of the refrigerated steamed lentils mixed with a jar of the red bruschetta sauce jar, let chill for a while in the refrigerator if ya have the patience.
Vicki- thank you! That sounds so good!!!
These look amazing!!! Do you have a recipe for the soft almond ricotta?
I was wondering the same thing. I’d love to try this.
Here Kerri!
https://heatherchristo.com/2018/03/19/how-to-make-almond-ricotta/
YES!! I am so sorry- I must have forgotten to link to it!
https://heatherchristo.com/2018/03/19/how-to-make-almond-ricotta/
very creative use of ingredients, like having this as a change of pace from the traditional recipe, thank you!
This has been my favorite recipe since being diagnosed with EOE. You have saved me. I wanted to feel like I was having a dinner party and this was both fancy in presentation and easy peezy to make for a party of 2 in quarantine!
Figuring out what has been causing my EOE is taking forever, over 17 months and no results yet. Your blog adn cookbook are lifesavers and give me hope that I can (if I have to) live without eggs, dairy, wheat, fish, soy, nuts, adn who know what else !
This was delicious. I may have used more almond ricotta than necessary, as it took 1.5 batches to get the job done. And it took me longer than I would have thought to roll up the zucchini. But it was totally worth it! A perfect fall party dish.