Need a quick easy paleo dinner? This one-pot zucchini beef skillet is ready in 30 minutes and is the perfect way to use up that garden zucchini! It can be either eaten on its own or, if you’re not paleo, served over rice to stretch your portions.
As a busy working mom who cooks up at least 50 different recipes a month, we have to wash a lot of dishes in our house. In fact, I even brought an assistant on to help us keep up with the dishes (plus lots of other things because she’s awesome!).
So because of the state of our kitchen, whenever I am cooking specifically for our family, I want cooking to be as simple as possible without making a ton of dirty dishes.
This zucchini beef skillet is one of those throw together meals that is crazy easy to make. I used freeze dried onions and refrigerated chopped garlic in place of fresh, so all I had to chop was the zucchini and parsley from our garden.
We’ve decided we really like eating our zucchini beef skillet over rice to stretch the cost, and probably because I’m from Hawaii, so our rice pot is pretty much always full of rice.
Of course, if you don’t want to dirty a pot for rice, or need a paleo meal, the zucchini and beef is quite filling and flavorful all on its own.
Do you have a favorite one-pot dinner? We’d love to have you share your recipe or a link to it in the comments below. I always need more!
KITCHEN TOOLS AND INGREDIENTS
By clicking one of these links before making any purchase on Amazon, we get a small percentage of your purchase, without it costing you anything extra! Thanks for helping to support our family business.
ZUCCHINI BEEF SKILLET RECIPE
Zucchini Beef Skillet Recipe a One-Pot Paleo Dinner
We've always made this recipe with freeze dried or dehydrated onions and jarred garlic. The measurements for fresh are listed as well, just that it will increase your prep time. This makes 4 servings if eaten alone, 6 servings if over rice (though of course it will not be paleo over rice!) Recipe adapted with permission from food.com
Ingredients
- 1 lb lean ground beef, thawed
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper
- 2 TBS dehyrdrated minced onion or 1/4 cup freeze dried chopped onion (1⁄2 medium onion, chopped)
- 1 teaspoon jarred minced garlic (2 garlic cloves, chopped)
- 1 cup chunky salsa, we use medium Pace Salsa
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 2 cups medium fresh zucchini, sliced into half circles (3-4 )
- fresh cilantro, chopped
Instructions
- Add the ground beef, salt, pepper, onion, and garlic to a large skillet on medium high heat.
- Stir while cooking for about 5-8 minutes, until the meat is browned.
- Stir in the salsa and cumin, reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes.
- Stir in the sliced zucchini. Cover and simmer an additional 5-10 minutes until the zucchini is just softened but not mushy.
- Sprinkle with chopped cilantro just before serving.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
4Serving Size:
4 servingsAmount Per Serving: Calories: 198Saturated Fat: 2.55gCholesterol: 70.06mgSodium: 838.88mgCarbohydrates: 10gFiber: 2.46gSugar: 7.47gProtein: 25.82g
Sounds simple yet yummy to make.
Thanks Kim!
I added mushrooms & red peppers
I’m always into anything that’s one-pot and keeps dishes to a minimum!
One pot meals are the best. We do enough dishes as it is!
Delicious ! Thanks .
That’s what I call a perfect dinner!
I love that you have bulked this out with zuchinni. It looks delicious and filling.
Tempting dish. I will use ground chicken instead of the beef though.
Let me know how it turns out?
I love one pot meals & this looks like something I can make & that the family would love to eat (aka flavorful!). Going to give this recipe a try right away 😉
Let us know what you think of it!
This would be such a hit at our house! Looks delish 😀
This recipe is calling my name. It’s absolutely perfect, and I love how pretty it is. It’s pure comfort food.
Thanks Kim!
This looks absolutely delicious! And I just so happen to have all of these ingredients in the house already. Dinner is planned! :o)
Nice Mom . I love this.
What is paleo?
Great question! It’s a current fad diet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet
I thought jarred salsas, including Pace are not considered Paleo?
Great question Annna. What in the Pace ingredients have you read are not compliant? From my own research, while there are 2 grams of sugar per serving, it is naturally from the tomatoes. There is no sugar in the ingredients list. All the forums I’ve found have listed it as Paleo compliant.
Do you drain grease before adding salsa and zucchini?
Thank you.
Great question. Yes drain the grease. We buy a whole grass fed cow so it’s very lean and I never have grease to drain!