Ground Chicken and Parmesan Roasted Zucchini Bowls with Orzo

I’m a huge fan of rice bowls, particularly high protein rice bowls and power bowls. So when I decided to make an Italian style ground chicken and zucchini combo, I figured I should use the rice-shaped pasta known as orzo. It’s the best of both worlds!

These orzo bowls are made with garlic parmesan roasted zucchini and a shortcut Sunday sauce made with ground chicken, onion, and a jar of your favorite pasta sauce.

Shortcut Italian Ground Chicken

If you’ve tried my high protein spaghetti and meatballs or lazy turkey lasagna, you know I’m a big fan of Rao’s sauces. And for this ground chicken, I used a jar of Rao’s vodka sauce. Don’t worry if you have trouble finding Rao’s in stores, any pasta sauce works fine for this recipe.

I like to add diced sweet onion to the ground chicken and sauce for a little something extra, but it’s totally optional. Since this is a quick cooking sauce that won’t simmer any longer than it takes to prepare the orzo and roasted zucchini, other vegetables like carrots may not have time to fully cook down.

Though if you have some time and want to make a sauce from scratch, my turkey bolognese recipe would work well with ground chicken and the other components in this recipe.

And if you want to go in a different direction flavor wise, you might try something like the honey harissa sauce in my Mediterranean ground chicken or the lemon pepper and dijon flavors from my creamy turkey orzo.

Making the Parmesan Roasted Zucchini

Four zucchini, cut into half moons (pictured below), tossed in olive oil, and seasoned with grated parmesan and a little granulated garlic and black pepper. The zucchini is split between two half sheet pans and baked for 25-30 minutes until golden brown.

This is a great opportunity to point out this recipe is geared towards meal prep with a yield of eight bowls. If you’re cooking for one and don’t love freezing leftovers, I would recommend cutting everything in half. But even if you go that route and really love zucchini, you might keep this portion of the recipe the same.

Personally, I can’t get enough of this stuff!

Garlic parmesan is a cheat code for crispy, flavorful roasted vegetables. It turns radishes into a passable keto potato substitute, and carrots into a bonafide sweet potato fries alternative.

I typically use the cheap pre-grated parmesan for roasted vegetables and save the finer parmigiano reggiano to grate over finished dishes. But if you’d rather use freshly grated for roasting, it works okay. Just be sure to grate it as finely as possible to mimic the stuff out of the shaker bottle.

And by the way, if you’re not a fan of zucchini and summer squash, you could swap it for another vegetable like broccoli. The baking time should be pretty similar, but I’d keep a closer eye on the broccoli around the 15-minute mark since it’s not as forgiving as zucchini.

Orzo vs Rice Bowls

I’m one of the biggest rice bowl enthusiasts you’ll come across. But with an Italian style ground chicken, orzo is a no brainer. If you’re unfamiliar with orzo, it’s made just like any other wheat pasta and you prepare it the same way. Bring a pot of water to a boil before salting and cooking for 12-14 minutes.

The nutrition facts are very similar between a cup of cooked orzo and rice, so don’t worry about that.

If you wanted to cut the carbs, you could try using rice alternatives like cauliflower or hearts of palm rice. You could also use other protein pastas or veggie noodles. Though I’d skip the zoodles since this dish has roasted zucchini!

On the flip side, if you have some calories to spare you could toss the cooked orzo with a bit of unsalted butter or olive oil, lemon zest, and fresh herbs before assembling your zucchini and chicken bowls.

Assembling, Storing, and Reheating

As-written, the recipe makes eight bowls with a cup of cooked orzo, seven ounces of ground chicken, and just shy of three ounces of zucchini each. If you want to stretch this to make even more bowls or just have smaller portion sizes, you can multiply the nutrition facts and amounts of each ingredient per serving to get the totals. Then divide the totals by the number of servings you want. Easy peasy!

I suggest serving with a bit of freshly grated cheese, basil or parsley, and Calabrian chiles for some brightness and a little heat. The nutrition facts don’t account for any of these extras, so be sure to include them if you’re a macro tracker.

As for storing leftovers, I package everything together in airtight containers. But if you wanted to store the zucchini separately and try to bring it back to life a bit in the oven or air fryer, that’s not a bad idea. Just be sure to store the chicken and orzo together, as the moisture in the chicken will help the orzo reheat without turning into one giant blob of pasta.

Now, that covers everything I can think of when it comes to making and modifying these ground chicken bowls. The comments section below is open for any questions you might have. Otherwise, you can save or print the recipe card below.

I hope you enjoy this recipe. If you do, I always appreciate recipe reviews!