Stuffed Peppers
Bell peppers filled with seasoned ground beef, rice, tomatoes and cheese, baked in a tomato sauce until tender and topped with bubbling mozzarella.
- Everyday Classics
- Oven
- Beef
- Dinner
- 75 min total
- Serves 6
Ingredients
Ingredients for servings
Enter a number of at least ½, in steps of ½.
Original recipe serves 6. Ingredient amounts adjust automatically. Cooking times and pan size may need adjusting separately.
- 6 large bell peppers, any color
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 lb ground beef, 85/15
- 1 yellow onion, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 1/2 cups cooked white rice
- 14 1/2 oz diced tomatoes, 1 can, drained
- 15 oz tomato sauce, 1 can, divided
- 1 tsp Italian seasoning
- 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese, divided
- 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
- 2 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
Gear
- Baking dish that fits 6 peppers upright
- Skillet
- Foil
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Steps
Step 1: Heat the oven to 375°F. Cut the tops off the peppers and pull out the seeds and ribs. Trim a thin slice off the bottoms if they won't stand up (don't cut a hole).
Step 2: Stand the peppers in a baking dish, add 1/4 cup water to the dish, cover with foil and microwave or bake 10 minutes to soften slightly. Pour off the water.
Step 3: Heat the oil in a skillet over medium-high. Brown the beef and onion 7 to 8 minutes, breaking up the meat. Drain the fat. Add the garlic for 30 seconds.
Step 4: Off the heat, stir in the rice, diced tomatoes, half the tomato sauce, Italian seasoning, paprika, salt, pepper, Worcestershire and 1/2 cup of the mozzarella.
Step 5: Pack the filling into the peppers, mounding it on top. Pour the remaining tomato sauce around the peppers in the dish.
Step 6: Cover with foil and bake 30 minutes. Uncover, top with the remaining mozzarella and the Parmesan, and bake 15 minutes more, until the peppers are tender and the cheese is bubbly and browned.
Step 7: Sprinkle with parsley and spoon the sauce from the dish over the top.
Swaps
- Rice: Use quinoa, cauliflower rice or a microwave pouch of Spanish rice.
- Meat: Ground turkey, Italian sausage, or a mix.
- Tex-Mex: Swap Italian seasoning for taco seasoning, mozzarella for pepper jack, and add black beans.
Tips
- Red, yellow and orange peppers are sweeter than green ones. Green have a slightly bitter, classic flavor.
- Use leftover rice; it holds its shape better in the filling.
The story
HAM Cooking. Let’s fire it up.
Stuffed peppers are the dinner that comes with its own bowl. You can eat the bowl, too. Fewer dishes, more food. That’s a win-win in my house.
The classic stuffed pepper problem is timing. Raw peppers need a while in the oven to get tender, but the already-cooked filling dries out long before that. Giving the peppers a quick head start, softening them in the microwave or oven, fixes it so the peppers and filling finish together. Covering them with foil for most of the bake traps steam and keeps everything juicy.
Using cooked rice in the filling is important too. Raw rice would soak up all the moisture and might not cook through. Tomato sauce poured around the peppers bubbles up as they bake and turns into a sauce to spoon over the top. Cheese goes on at the end, so it melts and browns instead of burning.
HAM out.
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