Zucchini Sausage Pizza Pie

I drove to Grinnell Saturday. Roger was in the garden — the garden that is his whole world now, the 82-year-old man who tends six tomato plants and twelve sunflowers with the same care he once gave four hundred acres. He's slower but he's still Roger. He still watches the crop reports. He still calls Jack on Wednesdays.

Thursday was tater tot hotdish, because Thursday is always tater tot hotdish and the schedule doesn't change for anything — not pandemics, not loss, not the passage of years. The tater tots go in at 375 and come out golden and the family eats them and the eating is the Thursday and the Thursday is the structure and the structure holds. But I also made homemade pasta with butter and parmesan earlier this week, because the kitchen doesn't only look backward. The kitchen grows.

Seed starting continues at the Holloway household — the windowsill green, the grow lights purple, the soil mix precise. The annual miracle of February and March: things grow even when everything says they shouldn't. The growing is the argument against everything.

With the grow lights humming purple over the windowsill and the seed trays already crowded with green, I wanted to cook something that honored that same energy — something that said the garden is coming, we’re ready. This zucchini sausage pizza pie is exactly that kind of dish: sturdy and satisfying like a Thursday routine, but alive with vegetables in a way that feels like a promise. It’s the recipe I keep coming back to when the kitchen is trying to grow alongside everything else.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 40 min | Total Time: 1 hr | Servings: 6

Ingredients

1 lb Italian sausage, casings removed
2 medium zucchini, thinly sliced (about 3 cups)
1 medium onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup marinara sauce
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 can (8 oz) refrigerated crescent roll dough
1 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
Salt and black pepper to taste
1 tablespoon olive oil

Instructions

Preheat oven. Heat oven to 375°F. Lightly grease a 9x13-inch baking dish or a deep-dish pie plate with cooking spray.
Press the crust. Unroll the crescent dough and press it evenly across the bottom and up the sides of the prepared baking dish, pinching any seams together to form a solid crust. Set aside.
Cook the sausage. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, add the sausage and cook, breaking it apart with a wooden spoon, until browned and no longer pink, about 6–8 minutes. Transfer to a paper-towel-lined plate and drain excess fat, leaving about 1 tablespoon in the pan.
Saute the vegetables. Return the skillet to medium heat. Add the olive oil if needed, then cook the onion until softened, about 4 minutes. Add the garlic and zucchini slices, season with salt and pepper, and cook another 4–5 minutes until the zucchini is just tender. Stir in the Italian seasoning and red pepper flakes if using.
Layer the filling. Spread the marinara sauce evenly over the crescent dough crust. Layer in the cooked sausage, then the zucchini and onion mixture, spreading evenly.
Add the cheese. Sprinkle the mozzarella evenly over the top, followed by the Parmesan.
Bake. Transfer to the preheated oven and bake uncovered for 30–35 minutes, until the crust is golden at the edges and the cheese is bubbling and lightly browned on top.
Rest and serve. Let the pizza pie rest for 5 minutes before slicing. Serve warm, straight from the dish.

Nutrition (per serving)

Zucchini Sausage Pizza Pie — What the Garden Gives, the Kitchen Answers