Old Fashioned Stuffed Green Peppers

Our easy stuffed green peppers made with a few ingredients is great. Inexpensive and pretty healthy too. We will explain how to blanch bell peppers easily first, add the ground beef and rice mixture so you can enjoy them too.

You can use other colors of peppers too, it’s up to you. 😉 I usually buy double so I can make these for dinner and a batch of homemade green pepper jelly to use as a sauce for pork chops. They’re so versatile. For an easy and healthy recipe here I go with this one.

There really are very few ingredients to this one, which I love, and you can alter it according to your own taste along the way or every time you make it just adjust here and there. We make these quite often so we have adjusted it to the point where it is perfect for us and this is the green peppers recipe I will share with you.

What you need to get started

I use what is on hand. If I only have a roll of Jimmy dean sausage I would use that instead of ground beef. The spicy type is great to use half and half if you ask me. There is usually more mixture left than will fill 4 peppers so I fill the last 2 holes of my muffin pan with the mixture, top with cheese and it is a good meal for the next day.

Any color of bell peppers will work for this. I do choose the ones with 4 bumps at the bottom though as they will stand up easier and not want to fall over.

In this case we did add some cooked white Ninja foodi rice, since it is cooked beforehand feel free to use cooked brown rice if you prefer. Heck we have even made this with some pressure cooker quinoa instead for more protein.

We use and like quite a bit of cheese. If you do need a dairy free alternative I have found that Daiya has a wonderful shredded one. My husband needs this so we have tested quite a few.

I will use a rich tomato sauce with some softened and diced onions inside. You could use spaghetti sauce, or diced tomatoes but that won’t make it as rich and thick so it isn’t my favorite choice. You can integrate some sliced mushrooms into the mix too if you like.

If you don’t have a muffin tin so they don’t fall over you could use a regular pan, just large enough so they fit snug with high sides.

Tips

You will need a little prep at the beginning. Precook the beef or ground turkey with diced onions if you want to add those. Cut the tops off the peppers, remove seeds, and blanch them in a large pot of boiling water. Remove to cool a bit. This will ensure peppers are tender and remove the bitterness.

You don’t really want to submerge the peppers for much longer than about 10 min. or so. I just do it as long as it takes me to finish browning the ground beef.

And depending on how long it takes to cook your cup of white rice in your rice cooker (or however you cook your rice, this is my favorite one, you will want to make sure that is prepared before you combine the filling.

How to Make Stuffed Green Peppers

While the rice and peppers are blanching, cook the ground beef and put some dehydrated onion, or diced onion, in as well as some Lawry’s or regular salt to taste. If you want lower fat versions you could easily swap out for ground chicken or turkey too. Want a bit of heat, use half beef and half a lb. of spicy ground sausage.

I add mushrooms at this stage and cook all of it together browning them as well. Cook until it is not pink anymore and put in a large bowl. Remember that they will bake again in the oven so you don’t need it all to be completely browned at this point. Shred your cheese and set aside in a separate bowl.

with Mini Peppers

If you wanted to make more of a finger food size you could make stuffed mini peppers. Bake time would reduce significantly but you’d use the same recipe. Just fit a few in each muffin hole opening. Once your rice is cooked you are ready to fill! I use a large muffin pan because the green peppers fit exactly into the holes and won’t fall over when cooking. 😉

Add prepped ingredients into your large bowl and stir together. Set inside a baking dish or muffin tin before scooping mixture in the middle, top with cheese, then put another scoop on top of that and top with cheese.

Other cooking methods for stuffed peppers

We have instructions here on baked stuffed peppers recipe too. If you love these you should try our air fryer breakfast stuffed peppers too! Want to skip blanching all together? Try crockpot stuffed bell peppers recipe here.