Stuffed Bell Peppers have been a huge favorite of mine since my aunt first made them for me many many years ago. At the time it seemed like such an elaborate, fancy recipe, but who knew they were really this simple to make! It’s a classic comfort food recipe that’s hearty, filling, easy to customize, and can feed a large family. Plus the flavors in this version are incredibly delicious! So much so that we’re still talking about it over a month later! ;)
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What’s in Stuffed Bell Peppers?
There are several versions of stuffed bell peppers out there and most usually include ground beef, rice, tomatoes, and cheese. I got a little creative with this recipe as I wanted it to be simple to make, but still have tons of flavor! Here’s what you’ll need:
- Bell Peppers: I used different colors of bell peppers because I love how colorful and vibrant they look, but if you’re working with a tight budget you can certainly just use all green bell peppers instead.
- Italian Sausage: Italian sausage instead of ground beef for an extra boost of flavor. But you can use ground beef, ground turkey or even Italian turkey sausage if you like.
- Onion and garlic: These two ingredients produce a great combination of aromatics to help flavor the sausage and rice.
- Seasoning: A simple mix of Italian seasoning, salt, pepper, and garlic powder is all you’ll need. If you want an extra kick, you can also add a pinch of red pepper flakes too!
- Marinara sauce: Instead of adding a can of tomatoes or tomato sauce, I used marinara sauce. It’s tomatoes with extra herbs & spices all in one…aka more flavor!
- Long grain white rice: The rice helps bulk up the filling for the bell peppers. In this recipe the rice is cooked in the same skillet as the meat filling. It gives the rice a ton of flavor and let’s be honest…who wants to clean more dishes by cooking a separate pot of rice? Not me!
- Chicken broth: Broth is used to help cook the rice and it provides even more flavor of course!
- Shredded Mozzarella: And mozzarella cheese sprinkled on top for a gooey, tasty finish!
Should I cook the bell peppers first?
I definitely suggest par-cooking the bell peppers first, just a little bit before stuffing them. Not only does this help to soften the bell peppers, but it also cuts down on your cook time. As the bell peppers are cooking you can make the filling, shaving off about 20 minutes from your total cook time.
Budget Saving Tips!
Here are a few tips to help you stretch your money when making Stuffed Bell Peppers:
- Use the green bell peppers! Although it makes for a colorful final dish when you use red, yellow or orange bell peppers, these colors often cost a little bit more. You can just buy all green bell peppers instead and save some coins.
- Cut a 4th bell pepper in half and stretch the filling out to make 8 servings instead of 6. Trust me..we stuffed these bell peppers quite a bit, but you could totally stretch the filling if you wanted to.
- If you want to just use 1/2 a pound of sausage, that works too! Just add an additional 1/2 cup of rice and 3/4 cup of broth to what is listed in the recipe below, to increase the filling and make up the difference.
- Feel free to use ground beef instead if it’s cheaper than the Italian sausage at your local store. You may need to add a bit more seasoning to make up for the flavor you would get in the sausage though.
What to serve with Stuffed Bell Peppers
The filling inside each of these stuffed bell peppers are pretty hearty by themselves, but if you want to serve something with it on the side, they would also be great with a simple salad or some crusty garlic bread. If you want to double down on the veggies, you can also serve these with some roasted broccoli, roasted Brussels sprouts, or a side of simple sautéed vegetables.
Storing & Reheating
Got leftovers? No problem! These stuffed bell peppers hold up very well in the refrigerator stored in an airtight container for up to 4 days. They can be reheated in the microwave or the oven and the leftovers taste just as good the next day, making them perfect for meal prep!
Stuffed Bell Peppers
Servings 6 servingsIngredients
- 3 bell peppers ($3.97)
- 2 Tbsp cooking oil, divided ($0.08)
- 1 lb Italian sausage ($4.99)
- 1 yellow onion, diced ($0.38)
- 3 garlic cloves, minced ($0.24)
- 1 tsp Italian seasoning ($0.10)
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder ($0.05)
- 1 1/4 tsp salt, divided ($0.06)
- 1/4 tsp freshly cracked black pepper ($0.02)
- 1 cup marinara sauce ($0.71)
- 1/2 cup uncooked long grain white rice ($0.21)
- 3/4 cup chicken broth ($0.15)
- 1 cup shredded mozzarella ($1.25)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Wash and dry each bell pepper, then cut the bell peppers in half horizontally. Make sure to cut them as evenly as possible. Using a sharp paring knife carefully cut and remove the stem from the top half of each bell pepper (see picture below). It's okay if there is a small hole left where the stem was removed.
- Place each bell pepper half in a 9×13-inch casserole dish. Brush the bell peppers with 1 Tbsp oil and season with ¼ tsp of salt and ¼ tsp cracked black pepper. Bake the bell peppers in a preheated oven for 20 minutes to soften. After 20 minutes remove the bell peppers from the oven and set aside.
- While the bell peppers are baking, make the filling. Heat a large skillet over medium heat and add 1 Tbsp of oil. Brown the Italian sausage.
- Once the sausage has browned, add the diced onion and minced garlic to the skillet. Continue to sauté over medium heat until the onion is translucent and the garlic is fragrant.
- Next add the uncooked rice, marinara sauce, Italian seasoning, garlic powder, 1 tsp of salt, and chicken broth to the skillet. Stir to combine.
- Place a lid on the skillet, turn the heat up to medium-high, and allow the mixture to come to a full boil. Once boiling, immediately reduce the heat to medium-low and allow the mixture to simmer, without lifting the lid or stirring, for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, turn the heat off and let it rest, without lifting the lid, for an additional 5 minutes.
- Next remove the lid, fluff the rice, and stir the mixture again to redistribute the ingredients. Begin to fill each bell pepper with the meat filling. Stuff as much filling as you can into each, filling them all the way to the top.
- Top each bell pepper evenly with shredded mozzarella cheese. Loosely place some tented aluminum foil over the top of the casserole dish and bake for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes the bell peppers should be tender but not mushy.
- Now remove the foil and turn the heat on to broil. Broil the stuffed bell peppers for 2-3 minutes or just until the cheese gets a little brown on top. Be sure to watch the bell peppers closely at this step to prevent the cheese from over browning. Garnish with parsley, if desired, and enjoy!
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Equipment
- Deep Stainless Steel Skillet
- Glass Casserole Dish
Nutrition
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Also try our Chorizo Stuffed Bell Peppers!
How to Make STUFFED BELL PEPPERS – Step by Step Photos
Preheat the oven to 350°F then wash and dry 3 bell peppers. Cut the bell peppers in half horizontally, yes horizontally. Most stuffed bell pepper recipes either keep the bell peppers whole or cut them vertically, but by cutting them horizontally you end up with a flatter bottom service and it’s easier to stuff. Trust me! Make sure to cut them as evenly as possible. Using a sharp pairing knife carefully cut and remove the stem from the top half of each bell pepper. It’s okay if there is a small hole left where the stem was removed.
Place each bell pepper half in a 9×13-inch casserole dish. Brush the bell peppers with 1 Tbsp cooking oil, divided between all 6 halves, and season with ¼ tsp of salt and ¼ tsp cracked black pepper, also divided between all 6 halves. Bake the bell peppers in a preheated oven for 20 minutes to soften. After 20 minutes remove them from the oven and set aside.
While the bell peppers are baking, make the filling. Heat a large skillet over medium heat and add 1 Tbsp of oil. Add 1 lb Italian sausage and cook until brown.
Once the sausage has browned, add the 1 diced yellow onion and 3 minced garlic cloves to the skillet. Continue to sauté over medium heat until the onion is translucent and the garlic is fragrant.
Next add ½ cup uncooked white rice, 1 cup of marinara sauce, 1 tsp Italian seasoning, ½ tsp garlic powder, 1 tsp of salt, and ¾ cups chicken broth to the skillet. Stir to combine. Place a lid on the skillet, turn the heat up to medium-high, and allow the mixture to come to a full boil. Once boiling, immediately reduce the heat to medium-low and allow the mixture to simmer, without lifting the lid or stirring, for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, turn the heat off and let it rest, without lifting the lid, for an additional 5 minutes.
Next remove the lid, fluff the rice, and stir the mixture again to redistribute the ingredients. Begin to fill each bell pepper with the sausage and rice mixture. Stuff as much filling as you can into each, filling them all the way to the top.
Divide 1 cup of shredded mozzarella cheese on top of each bell pepper evenly. Loosely place some tented aluminum foil over the top of the casserole dish and bake in the oven for 15 minutes.
After 15 minutes, remove the foil and turn the heat to broil. Broil the stuffed bell peppers for 2-3 minutes or just until the cheese gets a little brown on top. Be sure to watch the bell peppers closely at this step to prevent the cheese from getting too brown. Garnish with parsley, if desired, and enjoy!
I made the recipe as written. It was good. It turned out salty, but not inedible. Next time I’ll omit added salt. I’m sure the marinara, broth, and sausage pushed the salt levels too high.
The preparation was different than my usual family method, not blanching full size peppers was a big improvement. I think an added textural element to the rice/meat mixture would be a good addition. I don’t have an idea what it should be. There is just a very fine line in hitting the rice cook perfectly vs having mush filling.
this is a smart way to stretch your peppers. I would also suggest making the tomato sauce from tomato paste, very economical. you can use chicken boullion to flavor it, with a splash of vinegar and sugar, salt pepper and italian seasoning. use it for the filling and I like to put some in the pan with the peppers. to stretch it further you can definitely add beans to the meat! black beans or white beans work.
I do not cook my rice and sauce together, I definitely do them separate. it’s more time intensive but my rice is always fully cooked.
blanch the peppers first! very important.
literally followed it exactly and my filling got burnt you’re gonna need to either gonna need more broth, add water, or stir it while it’s cooking. I wasted my ingredients and time on this and i don’t recommend it to anyone.
Made this for my family and we all LOVED it! Very delicious! The sausage was salty enough so I didn’t add any more salt, and I used a no sodium broth. Very tasty!
Very time consuming for something so basic. It came out salty, even with less salt than called for, and the peppers were overcooked. Too much sausage, not enough rice.
Nice easy recipe i’m going to cook today! Albertson’s has their red bell peppers on sale, & i was thinking how nice the red & green peppers would look for a Christmas season dinner or two :-)
Too salty for us! Will probably adjust due to full sodium chicken broth. Otherwise so promising!
The filling was overly salty and the rice took an additional 10 minutes and another cup of water to cook fully. I’ll probably look for a different stuffed pepper recipe next time.
Probably the chicken broth you used was salty enough that no additional salt was needed! I’ve found it safest not to add any salt to anything these days, because each person has their own taste – and also, because i’m actually a vegetarian, & am unable to sample the foods I’m preparing if they have meat in them! The rice needing more water suggests that you might’ve had the lid off the pan while it was cooking! Or, your stove might be like mine, where it’s just about impossible to simmer anything, because the flame goes out if the burner’s turned too low!
Excellent recipe! Easy to make and really delicious.
The filling was delicious, but the bell peppers didn’t cook enough to be able to eat them.
I live in colorado, and I didn’t see a variation for high altitude. This recipe didn’t turn out well for me): sounded delicious. But the rice wasn’t cooked through and burned to the pan too. Bummer. Any recipe suggestions for high altitude?
Hi Kitty! We’re in Nashville, TN so we don’t have much experience adapting recipes for high altitude! That’s not something we provide with any of our recipes. :)
This was very helpful! I just need to make it a bit more moist but it was sooo delicious!
I used spanish rice and added can of diced Italian tomatoes and corn
I loved this recipe. Especially roasting the peppers first. It leaches out all the extra water. My rice always sticks so the only thing I did differently was cook the rice first in seasoned chicken broth. I then put everything together and let it simmer for awhile. Thanks so much.
Made this 2x now, it’s amazing. Now that my garden is ending I intend to try this same stuffing in acorn squash, baked fish and baked chicken. Betting it’s just as amazing.
I made mine with chirizo sausage that I pressed out of the casings. It was so amazing!
Thanks for this. I made mine vegetarian by subbing the sausage with beans and corn. Delicious recipe!
Any thoughts on using wild rice, black rice, quinoa, or amaranth instead of white rice? I love white rice but white rice doesn’t love me. Thanks!
Quinoa would be closest to the same cooking time, but we haven’t tested it properly so I can’t say for sure! The others would take too long to cook I think.
Be careful! Good recipe but I didn’t check the rice as it says to leave the lid on and it burnt on the bottom!
This is the best stuffed pepper recipe I’ve ever made. This is absolutely delicious!
Love love love your recipes Marsha. You make my job as a mom so much easier and delicious
Delicious and easy to make. Will definitely make again and double the recipe.
Easy recipe to follow with excellent advice.
Best part is tasting the end result , will make again..
QUESTION! I want to try this recipe soon and I’m curious, has anyone tried storing these in the freezer? I have stored bell peppers in the freezer before and it didn’t turn out so well; maybe because I used a ziplock bag instead of a legit food sealer. Also, if storing in the freezer is a viable option, what is the best way to reheat them? Any advice would be amazing, thanks!
I haven’t had much success freezing large pieces of bell pepper, only diced or sliced for something like fajita veggies, as the texture gets a bit weird. You could just freeze the filling, though! Then, all you’s have to do is prep the peppers when you want to make them!
Currently doing this! We made extra filling the first time, and have used it as we get green peppers from the garden! These are BOMB! My husband loves them!
This recipe is the best stuffed pepper recipe that I have ever had. My mom made with hamburger meat and green peppers. I did not like them so I haven’t had any in 30+ years. DELICIOUS
This recipe worked out great, the only changes were used half ground beef and half sausage. I used plain spaghetti sauce and used about 2 cups. I had only 3 peppers so
excess filling went around the peppers to fill up the pan. The cheese on top made for a
wonderful meal. Leftovers were even better
I adore this recipe. Best stuffed bell peppers I’ve ever had, and the most complimented meal that I cook for other people. The flavor combo is just perfect and the broiling takes it from good to excellent. My only mini-substitutions are using double bouillon with the water instead of broth and buying a slightly nicer marinara sauce since the rice is really the star of the dish.
Other meals I like to make during the week to use the leftover perishable ingredients (sausage, marinara, and mozzarella) are sausage baked ziti and pizza.
This was so good! I doubled the rice, seasonings and liquids (used beef broth) to fill 6 peppers. Added parm cheese before filling and it was a hit! Great time saver cooking the rice with the broth and sauce.
The flavor in these was good! I prefer ground beef so I subbed that for the sausage, and doubled the spices as suggested. This indeed makes a TON of food. The bell peppers I could get at the store were smaller than what is pictured so if I make it again, I would probably just cut the tops off and not cut the peppers in half. My biggest issue with this recipe was that the bell peppers did not get as soft as I wanted them to, so I may cook them longer ahead of time? And the length of time on this recipe surprised me, it takes quite a long time for something as simple as it is. The broiling at the end felt especially fussy to me and I skipped it. I found myself wishing I had more sauce, so when I reheated it the next day I added a little extra marinara on top. Regardless, this was tasty and good for meal prep for 1-2 people or to feed a family!
Too much salt for me.But it was very good other
Definitely making this again. I used leftover hamburger and chicken but the spice was on target. Thank you
I think these are the best stuffed peppers I have ever made. I am saving this recipe!! Thank you!
I used red, yellow, and orange peppers, superb!
Literally 2bucks a serving is amazing! It was quick, simple, and something new for my son to try.
This was wonderful, thanks for a great recipe. Everything came out great.
I cooked it according to the recipe and it came out so delicious! i had no issues with timing or anything, it was to a T for me. So easy to make too :)
I have made these several times as per the recipe, but I just cut the tops off the peppers essentially leaving them whole. I dice up the pepper tops and cook them with the onions. Everyone in my family loves them. Very delicious recipe.
Just finished eating these! SO good! Will be making them again. Family gobbled them up! I made double the amount for leftovers.
I cut the peppers in half to make little boats but otherwise followed the recipe exactly. It could have been super delicious but the rice was still raw. 20 minutes for cooking plus 5 rest was not enough. I cook rice frequently so I wasn’t expecting it to be crunchy after 25 minutes. I will increase the cook time for the rice next time and it will be perfect. Everything else was super tasty
riced cauliflower can be substituted for regular rice, keeping carbs lower; toss in a small diced jalapeño to the mix and kick it up a notch! jhm
Looks delish. I can’t eat sausage, so I will substitute ground beef. I also hate mozzarella, so I will substitute shredded sharp cheddar
There are some changes I would recommend to this recipe.
1. Do not cook the stuffing in a skillet. Cook it in a pot – you will run out of room in a skillet.
2. When all ingredients for the stuffing have been added, ABSOLUTELY you should be stirring this occasionally as it cooks. If you do not stir it, the rice will settle at the bottom and burn into charcoal, ruining all your hard work.
I think that’s what a nonstick skillet and a good pot and pan set is for. I have pioneer woman sets so it didn’t stick when I didn’t stir it, also I use a big enough skillet because rice does get bigger as it cooks. It’s just something I thought of when reading the recipe before cooking it
That was really good! I think that rice is one of the best things I’ve ever eaten.
I used ground beef instead of sausage and it was DELICIOUS!! :)
Absolutely fantastic… and if they manage to last, they make wonderful leftovers!! Would recommend! Served with a side of Lemony quinoa with herbs made with chicken broth, 10/10!! A labor of love but worth it!!
This is amazing!!! I will definitely make these again. I followed the recipe to the letter. Thank you for another great recipe.
I used quinoa instead of the rice, and more marinara sauce. Just awesome!!
this recipe was everything!!
My peppers came out excellent. My teenage children loved them. I will definitely be using this recipe again and again.
Thank you
I followed the recipe as written and I was very pleased with how it turned out. It was absolutely delicious.
I will definitely make it again
I made these tonight just as presented. They were excellent. Can I freeze the left overs?
You should definitely be able to freeze the filling just fine! Sometimes Bell peppers can get a little weird and watery, especially if you want to keep it in a large portion. Maybe you could chop it up first and toss it with the filling, then serve it as a bowl when you reheat?
I’ve never made nor ate stuffed peppers and this was amazing! I was not a fan of the actual pepper part, but it’s a personal opinion. DEFINITELY going to make this again but instead of stuffing the pepper, I plan to dice it and add it to the filling and making a casserole type dish instead.
Beth has an Unstuffed Peppers skillet that sounds right up your alley!
This was a great recipe. I am a amateur home cook found this to be a lot easier than I it would be. I just got walked through it very simple. Reminds me of the food my mom made when I was a kid she would come home from work a make dinner like this
One of my favorites….I’ve made like 3 times….
My personal touches….I used a pound of Italian sausage and a little pound of hamburger….double the rice,broth, and marina…..seasoned from the heart (read=theres no such thing as too much garlic!)
I made this for dinner and it was awesome I will make it again
Made it exactly as recipe said, and my rice didn’t cook at ALL.
To keep it low sodium I used water in place of the chicken broth an I used uncle Ben’s par-cooked rice. It turned out really good.
Fantastic! Husband said best stuffed pepper recipe ever. Thank you!
So good and easy! Thank you!
Amazing stuffed peppers! I love the Italian seasoning in this. I’ve made this with hot Italian sausage as well which was insanely good. My only note is that every time I make this I have extra filling. Could easily make 5 peppers, which I don’t mind, makes a great lunch.
This was devine. I made 2 boxes of Spanish rice rice a roni & put the spices, garlic & onion in it. I microwaved
the sausage & ground it in a food processor. Added all, including a jar of marinara sauce. Then did as indicated. Pure heaven.
This looks good, I know it may have a different taste but can you substitute ground turkey for the sausage?
You can! You just may have to add more seasoning to make up for the flavor in the sausage. :)
I used ground turkey instead and it was delicious!
I subbed in ground turkey but added extra spices from this recipe to make up for it and it worked well! It wasn’t as good, but helped me stick to my diet haha
https://www.spendwithpennies.com/homemade-italian-sausage/
Funny story, I used turkey Italian sausage from Publix with no other modifications. It was excellent. See if your local grocery has it, too!
Your recipes look amazing and easy. Which I’m grateful for. I can’t wait to make them for my family.
Is the nutrition info correct? One half of a pepper is one serving (3 peppers, 6 servings, peppers are cut in half) so a half pepper is 454 calories? One pepper is 908 calories? That doesn’t seem right…
I ran the recipe through an outside nutrition tracker (ours is built in) and got roughly the same number! The portion is quite generous though even though half a filled pepper may not seem like a lot. You can even add in one extra pepper and stretch the filling even farther if you need.
Thanks! Just made and it is delicious. I packed the half peppers pretty full so I see how they could be 454 calories now
Great recipe! I love that you can do the meat and rice all in the same pan, it saves more dishes from being used and the rice soaks up all that flavor. I’ll definitely be making this again (:
Can I freeze these? I am cooking for one. Thank you.
Definitely cook the rice first or something… mine came out crunchy as hell.
You missed that step where the rice cooks for 20 minutes?
Tasty and quick 🤤😋
These stuffed peppers are BOMB!! I added a little cayenne, onion powder, worcestershire sauce, and hot sauce. I also removed the tin foil and broiled the cheese for 3-4 min to brown it a little. Otherwise followed the recipe! Can’t wait to eat these for meal prep. Thank you!
O my Gosh. The best bell pepper I even have eaten!!! So worth making
Made without rice – I added another 1/2 lb italian sausage and added half a bag of riced cauliflower. I have about a cup of the pepper filling leftover for a lunch w/some pasta. These peppers were delicious, definitely a keeper. The last time I made stuffed peppers I used a recipe that didn’t call for pre-cooking the peppers and they were still somewhat crunchy. Pre-cooking them worked perfectly.
Left out the rice but still reallyyyy good! Keeping this one in the books!
Oh my gosh! Just the recipe & flavor I desired.
I will look for more recipes from Marsha!!
This was great! I made it for my boyfriend and we loved it! We both agreed that we’re going to use spicy Italian sausage next time for a little extra kick. Thank you so much for this delicious and budget-friendly meal!
What? No ketchup on top?
Really wonderful fall/winter comfort food ❤️. I subbed canned crushed tomatoes for the marinara (cheaper) and it still tasted great. It was quick and easy to roast the peppers in the air fryer (as directed). Definitely a keeper!
Love your stuffed peppers,they came out great, thank you
So I have cooked rice I need to use up and want to replace the uncooked rice. I’m thinking less chicken stock and simmer time?
You’ll likely need no broth, since the rice will not absorb any more, but unfortunately that will remove a lot of flavor from the dish. If you have bouillon, you can try stirring some of that (the amount needed to make ¾ cup broth) into the pasta sauce to see if that will help, but it may just make the sauce more salty instead of actually soaking into the already cooked rice, like it does when the rice is actually cooked in the broth.
Totally did not work. Followed recipe and rice raw.
Same for me :(
Just like my mama used to make. Very flavorful and yummy. Thank you for this recipe.
Have you ever made this with brown rice??
We haven’t made this one with brown rice, but if you give it a try just keep in mind that brown rice requires more liquid and needs to be cooked about 3x as long as white rice.
This is an excellent recipe and the first time I’ve made stuffed peppers that I really liked! I didn’t have a pound of sausage, so I used part hamburger and part Jimmy Dean regular Sausage. I also made the marinara sauce—takes only about 30 minutes and is very flavorful.
It looks really good and I’m going to try this recipe. But I’m not really sure how you came up with the pricing I don’t think I’ve ever paid $.38 for a pack never under a dollar.🤔🤣
Great recipe i going to try it
Very well done
I’m trying your bell pepper recipe.I bought the peppers from Amish
Great recipe! I’ve been cooking stuffed bell peppers for years but never pre-cook the pepper. Also, I’ve added cooked rice. Your recipe is outstanding!
Thank you so much for your recipes and website!!!
Marla
This is the first time I made stuffed peppers and they turned out great. I used 1/2 pound of hamburger and 1 hot Italian sausage link since that’s what I had in the freezer, and there was plenty of flavor. I definitely suggest using 4 peppers instead of 3. They were completely stuffed full even with the slight reduction in meat. My sister says the recipe she uses requires parboiling the peppers, so I much prefer this pre-baking method. Less dishes and much easier!
If I don’t want to include rice in the stuffing, how much broth do you think I should include? I’m guessing less because there will be less solids to absorb.
Correct, if you eliminate the rice there will be nothing to absorb the broth, so you’d want to skip the broth all together. But if you skip the broth that will also be skipping some of the flavor, so just keep that in mind! Plus the volume of the filling will be reduced considerably. :)
So easy to follow instructions! Even a beginner can cook well!!!
Update! These are even better reheated. I made a batch of 4 (two peppers cut in half) and we had two for dinner right out of the oven and two for lunch.
Both were good but the leftovers were better – the flavors blended while in the fridge. Delicious and highly recommended for meal prep.
Another note – no chicken broth on hand so used water.
I made these the other day and they are delicious! These will be in the regular rotation!
This was absolutely delicious and a new staple meal in my household! A few tips: 1) carving out the peppers takes a bit of effort so give yourself five more minutes to do this than you think you need, 2) if you’re using a chicken bullion cube to make your stock, then you don’t need to add any additional salt to this recipe, 3) hot sausage is a good replacement for Italian sausage if you can’t find it, 4) use four bell peppers instead of 3 since I had some left over filling, 5) don’t worry about broiling at the end if you can’t. I just popped my peppers in the oven without the cheese and then took them out, added the cheese, and cooked them for 5 more minutes.
This meal is cheap, delicious, and nutritious!
Absolutely delicious! I had to share with my neighbor they were so good. I made just a couple of changes, using italian style ground turkey, as well as halfing the salt added to the filling. It turned out great with these changes and I might even take a bit more of the salt out next time for good balance of flavors for my taste. Also, I did not watch the broiling closely and scorched the mozz the first time, but because the cheese was just on top, I was able to peel the cheese off and try again, just going straight for the broil instead of repeating the covered baking step. This turned out awesome. Will absolutely make these again, thank you Marsha!
I should also specify that I used Better than Boullion for the chicken broth, which has quite a bit of salt. That likely makes less added salt necessary!
Delicious! I will definitely make again. I only had half a pound of sausage (1 hot and 1 sweet sausage). Followed the rest of the recipe exactly and it turned out perfect. Thank you!
Made these last night. Used the portion size adjustment from 6 servings to 4. Worked great!
This is a great clear the fridge recipe. I had some Marinara sauce I needed to use up, pls one Italian sausage and some assorted veggies. And little bit of cheese.
Very tasty – thanks!
Hi! How do these freeze after cooking for an easy pre cooked meal or lunch?
Hi Heather! These will probably freeze well (all of the components are freezer friendly), but I don’t have reheating instructions as we haven’t tested it. :)
Surely by cutting the peppers in half, you’re throwing away halves of pepper?
Can I use chicken?
Are you really that brain dead? Please tell us you’re joking. They are being cut in half in order to stuff – hence the photos and there being 3 peppers and 6 servings. 🤦♀️
Obviously I am brain dead. I do apologise. Thank you for pointing it out to me.
Nope, you’re using both halves of the pepper. ;)
Thank you. Could the peppers not be cut long ways? 🫠
You can definitely cut them long ways, if you prefer. :) We tested both types of cuts and found that cutting them long ways made them more difficult to stand without tipping over and they didn’t fit in the dish as nicely.
Anyway to make this vegitarian?
You could sub beans for the sausage, but you’ll need to add a lot more spices to make up for what is in the sausage!
Just cut the peppers vertically then there isn’t a hole in the bottom of half of them!
We tested cutting it both ways and we felt that cutting them in half horizontally worked a lot better because they sit flat, fit in the casserole dish better, and create a deeper “cup.” :)
This recipe was good but I think there’s a mistake in the ingredients list. Currently, it says 3 bell peppers but 6 servings. In all of the photos there’s 6 bell peppers so I’m guessing it should say 6?
Nope, it was three. :) The bell peppers are cut in half horizontally (to make a top and bottom half) so each serving is a stuffed half pepper.
Delicious and easy recipe to follow! Makes plenty of food for leftovers.
I enjoyed this recipe.