Leftover chili stuffed bell peppers are delicious! Perfect using canned or a leftover chili hack for dinner, or make the night after you made 5 ingredient chili. Best thing to make with a lot of bell peppers. Even my kids love these.
So we love chili, and stuffed bell peppers. The other day when we made a big pot of the best vegetarian chili there was a bit left over the next day so I thought I would make chili stuffed bell peppers. They were a hit! Even the kids loved them. (affiliate links present)
What can you make with leftover chili?
This!! I’ve been making stuffed bell peppers for years. The same old way all of the time with the same insides and really never thought twice about it. With kids that are older now though, and not always here for dinner, I have had to work through food that is left the next day. Here is one favorite of ours.
It was my husband’s favorite dish that his grandma made when he was a kid. When we married he taught me how to make them and they were great! I used the same idea where you blanche the bell peppers, but instead of filling them with the rice and meat mixture I opted to fill it with our dutch oven chili! This is what I did.
Table of contents
Do you have to blanch peppers to make stuffed peppers?
Technically you don’t have to do anything when you are making this Old Fashioned dish but the texture will be off if you don’t. The reason you take this extra step is to soften the outside so everything is tender. If you are baking them you want to do it, if making Crockpot stuffed peppers the steam inside the pot will do the work for you.
- If you have never blanched anything before it isn’t as difficult as it sounds.
- You just remove the ribs and seeds, bring to a boil over medium heat, cover and simmer until they’re tender really.
- It takes all of 15 minutes or so
- It’s really quite easy, I will share how to do it below.
I know….yummy right??!! If you have a favorite chili recipe you can use that, use canned chili, or or Ninja Foodi chili recipe is very popular too. All in all it is a pretty low fat stuffed peppers recipe and lower in carb than those using rice.
Once you have your ground beef, vegetarian chili, or leftover Crockpot venison chili, preparing the rest is easy peasy. Have your muffin tin baking dish ready so you can pop them right in when they’re done.
How to Make Green Peppers Stuffed with Chili
You will first want the filling to already be prepared. Use canned, leftover chili, or 5 ingredient Instant Pot chili. Once done, just set it aside while you are prepping the rest of this. We are going to share how to bake these in the oven below.
If you are really opposed to boiling to begin with you can slow cook like we shared above or even faster you can make and follow our Instant Pot stuffed peppers instructions instead. You just set those on a trivet or oven safe bowl so they sit up straight and steam away!
- Cut the tops off peppers and remove seeds inside
- Blanch bell peppers <—— instructions here if you’ve never blanched anything
- Put each pepper into the hole of a large muffin tin (easiest way to keep them from not falling over)
- Put chili mixture into peppers, no more than 3/4 of the way full.
- Want it a bit spicy? Add some chili powder into the mix!
- Put in oven at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes or until chili is warmed
Top with cheese and diced jalapeno if desired and leave in oven for 5 more minutes. Can increase oven to 400 to get tops nice and brown. Once you love this you can go further and tweak our Instant Pot stuffed pepper casserole where you fold leftover chili in instead of the tomato sauce.
You can leave the tops of these chili stuffed peppers when cooking or use them as a sort of steamer and leave them on. I don’t blanch those so typically we don’t eat them with the meal but either way works. You are just warming the chili back up and letting it soak into the inside of the bell pepper in the oven really. It’s a great healthy bloody mary chili meal idea! Jump to recipe below and get started.
What can you make with a lot of bell peppers?
If you have grown, picked or bought more I suggest you get some jalapenos to make a batch of green pepper jelly, omg is that good. You can slice, saute with olive oil and add on top of burgers for added wow, and throughout this post we have shared other ideas too. I mean you can fill with all sorts of things y’all. Have pulled pork in the fridge from the night before? Fill with that!!
Chili Stuffed Bell Peppers
Equipment
- 1 pot to blanch peppers
- 1 muffin tin or pan so they don't fall over
Ingredients
- 6 bell peppers
- 5.5 c chili , or enough to fill each pepper 3/4 of the way full
- 1 c mozzarella cheese
- water, to blanch peppers
Instructions
- Cut the top off your bell peppers and remove seeds inside. Blanch bell peppers
- Put each pepper into the hole of a large muffin tin, this is the easiest way to keep them from not falling over.
- Fill peppers 3/4 way full with chili (canned, leftover chili, or any version.
- Put in oven at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes or until chili is warmed. Top with cheese and diced jalapeno if desired and leave in oven for 5 more minutes until melted, then Serve!
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
