Best Air Fryer Stuffed Peppers

How to make air fryer stuffed peppers for dinner tonight with ground beef or sausage and lots of rice and cheese. Comfort food at it’s best done in no time.

Stuffed peppers in air fryer

I honestly choose whatever colors are on sale when choosing these. Yellow, red and orange are a bit sweeter than green but we don’t really care.

Do you have to cook meat before stuffing peppers?

Yes. Whether you use hamburger meat or ground sausage it will need to be browned in a pan on the stovetop first. Then add other ingredients before stuffing inside.

What country are stuffed peppers from?

They actually were originated in Spain to begin with. There, piquillo peppers are used. In the US people typically use bell peppers with the tops removed and cored out.

Here are a few questions you might have before getting started:

Should I blanch peppers before stuffing?

It isn’t necessary but you can blanch bell peppers first, cool, and then stuff them. This method takes some of the bitterness out and softens the outsides. I do this when baking stuffed green peppers in the oven.

Adding diced onions and/or diced tomatoes is optional but a great add in. If you want them quite plain you can just stick with the tomato sauce.

• A great alternative to a can of plain tomato sauce is spaghetti sauce! This will lend more flavor to the dish, I use this if I have it on hand.

Air fryer stuffed bell peppers

• Ground beef or sausage
• Onion
• Diced tomatoes
• Tomato sauce or use spaghetti sauce for more flavor

I typically have half of a jar that is left over from making something else in the fridge and use that in the mixture. Then there are already a bunch of seasonings inside and I don’t have to add much from there.

Air Fryer Stuffed Peppers with Cauliflower Rice

Then as I stated above use any color bell peppers you want. Try to choose ones that will sit flat. Look at the bottoms, 4 bumps on the bottom seem to balance a bit better standing up.

• Cook your raw grains using our Instant Pot white rice instructions or however you’d like
  • make this at the same time you’re browning your ground beef, or make chicken stuffed bell peppers
  • you could make cauliflower rice instead, from scratch or they sell it frozen and you just microwave it
• Salt and pepper
• Onion powder
• Garlic powder
• Basil
• Parsley

Cheese on top is a must for us but could omit to be dairy free.

Air Fried Peppers

There is a wide range of different stuffed pepper recipes out there. You can really tweak things here and there to create your favorite filling. If you want brown cooked rice instead, by all means use that!

The great thing about using this method and cook time is you get a nice bit of crisp on the edges but the filling stays soft and moist.

I do love our Instant Pot stuffed peppers too but there’s no crisp at all with those. Once the cheese is melted on top you’re ready to serve!

I don’t add a lot of seasonings because there is plenty with the spaghetti sauce. Just add a bit of salt and pepper in with the meat, or whatever I have on hand that sounds good. Ready made taco seasoning or fajita packets work really well too in order to add a bunch of flavor.

Here are quick step by step directions but I have a printable recipe card at the bottom of this post as well for your reference.

Air Fryer Stuffed Peppers with Rice

Then you’re done in less than 20 minutes y’all!! If you want the top of the cheese more browned you could increase temp at end to 360 degrees to 400 for a few minutes.

Ninja Air Fryer Stuffed Peppers

Give these a whirl and let us know if you “tweak” them in a way we might want to try the next time we make these. There are SO many variations I tell you, and they’re all so good.