Budget Meals NYC - Part 1: Zucchini Boats

So, I just moved to New York City. What would have already been a big transition was made even more drastic due to the fact that I did this after living at home for the past five months like so many other twenty-somethings who had either recently graduated or were in the process of finishing school when COVID hit.

I’ll be the first to say that the experience of living at home certainly had its pros and cons. The biggest pro however, was definitely the free food and great homecooked meals every single night. To be honest, my family had never really done family dinners during the week growing up because everyone was always so busy with conflicting schedules, so this was definitely nice. Another great perk, however, was that I could save SO much money by not buying food.

Now imagine, five months later, you move into your new NYC apartment, excited to finally start your life, and you’re hit with the very harsh reality that New York City is really expensive. Plus you’re food obsessed like me and realize that trying a new restaurant every night is going to leave you broke quite quickly.

What do you do now?

You do what every other young adult who moves to NYC does; figures it out.

The tip that you will hear from everyone and their mother about saving money is to not eat out as much. And as much as I want to tell you to go try everything and anything around the city. Everyone and their mother are right. Eating out is expensive.

After talking to a lot of my friends about their worries with $$ and moving to the city, specifically related to food, I decided to start a series of ~cheap~ but also delicious recipes.

The main complaint that I heard from my friends was:

“But, what do I even make, I don’t want it to be boring.”

Cheap does not equal boring. Yes. I’ll admit that even I sometimes do resort to something simple like chicken, rice and veggies. But, even meals like that can be amped up a notch. .

So here goes part 1 of budget recipes: Zucchini Pizza Boats.

Disclaimer: I did not come up with this recipe myself. There are tons of variations all over the internet, and you can totally customize this to whatever toppings you like.

What you’ll need from the store (prices are from Trader Joes)

• 2 large zucchinis ($2.99)

• Jar of marinara sauce ($2 a jar)- you’ll only use about half a cup so you’ll have ~¾ of the jar left over so this costs you 50 cents in reality.

• Fresh mozzarella ($4.99/pound)- you’ll only use half, so this costs you $2.50 in reality.

• Cherry tomatoes ($2.49 for a pound) – you’ll only use about 1/3 of the box so this really costs you 83 cents.

Things you probably already have:

• Olive oil

• Salt + pepper

Total price for the meal: $6.82

- 2 large zucchinis (2.99)

- ½ cup marina (.50)

- Mozzarella (2.50)

- Cherry tomatoes (.83)

6 dollars and 82 cents for all that.

Plus, I was full after two of the zucchini boats and saved the rest for the next day so you can definitely get two meals out of this if you want.

Now, on to the actual process of making these bad boys:

1. Preheat oven to 425

2. Cut each zucchini in half

3. Use a spoon to scrape out the insides, but leave enough of the edge so that your sauce won’t fall out

4. Put olive oil and salt inside the zucchinis and place them on a rimmed baking sheet

5. Rip up your mozzarella

6. Slice cherry tomatoes in half

7. Add sauce and cheese to each boat

8. Place halved cherry tomatoes on each

9. Place in oven for 15 minutes

10. For last 2 minutes, put oven on broil to get that bubbly cheese

11. ENJOY!

Comment below and let me know if you try these out!