Stuffed bell peppers are awesome, but I always find them slightly awkward or difficult to eat. Can’t I just throw the ingredients in a bowl and eat it with a fork?! (I feel that way about a lot of food, TBH). So that’s what I ended up doing! These super simple unstuffed bell peppers are cooked in one skillet to make your (my) life super easy and delicious. #yesplease
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Can I Use Cauliflower Rice Instead of White Rice?
Unfortunately, you can not swap out cauliflower rice for the white rice in this recipe. Cauliflower rice releases liquid as it cooks, whereas white rice absorbs it, so you’ll end up with a stuffed bell pepper soup. :) But hey, that actually doesn’t sound so bad! You can also try using cauli rice and skipping the broth, but you’ll be missing a lot of flavor with that option.
Can I Freeze Unstuffed Bell Peppers?
Yes, this recipe freezes great! Make sure to divide the skillet into single serving portions just after cooking, and chill them completely in the refrigerator before transferring to the freezer. Once frozen, they’ll keep in the freezer for about three months and can be reheated in the microwave straight from the freezer (use the defrost setting first, then high until heated through).
Tips for Making One-Pot Rice Dishes
Even cooking plain rice on the stovetop can be a bit challenging for some folks, and when you add in other ingredients it can end up a little more tricky. To make sure your rice cooks thoroughly and evenly, keep these things in mind:
- Cookware: A really good quality (thick and heavy) skillet is really important for making this recipe work correctly. Heavy cookware conducts heat really evenly so the sides of your skillet will cook at the same rate as the part that is right above the flame. If it’s a thin skillet, it might scorch right in the center and leave the outer edges uncooked. If you don’t have a good skillet, a dutch oven or heavy soup pot would also work well.
- Heat level: Another key to cooking rice is making sure the water in the pot (or skillet) is simmering the whole time, but the heat is not so high that it burns on the bottom. So once you’ve got everything in the pot and have already brought everything up to a boil, turn the heat down to the lowest setting that still maintains a light simmer. Since this can vary from stove to stove and the type of cookware you’re using, you’ll need to adjust this based on what you’re hearing and seeing in the pot. Once you get the hang of it, though, it will be easy!
- Use a burner close in size to the bottom of your pot or skillet. If you’re using a wide bottomed pot or skillet over a very small burner, the outside edges of your pot or skillet may not receive enough heat to simmer and cook the rice through.
Love skillet meals? Check out my Chorizo Sweet Potato Skillet, Creamy Chicken and Rice Skillet, or One Pot Teriyaki Chicken and Rice.
Unstuffed Bell Peppers
Servings 6 1 ⅓ cups eachIngredients
- 1 clove garlic ($0.08)
- 1 yellow onion ($0.32)
- 2 bell peppers ($1.53)
- 1 Tbsp olive oil ($0.16)
- 1/2 lb. ground beef ($2.85)
- 1 15oz. can diced tomatoes ($1.00)
- 1 cup long grain white rice (uncooked) ($0.62)
- 1 tsp dried basil ($0.10)
- 1 tsp dried oregano ($0.10)
- 1/4 tsp freshly cracked black pepper ($0.02)
- 1.5 cups beef broth ($0.07)
- 1 8oz. can tomato sauce ($0.26)
- 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce ($0.01)
- 1 cup shredded mozzarella ($0.85)
- 1 Tbsp chopped parsley (optional garnish) ($0.05)
Instructions
- Mince the garlic and dice the onion and bell pepper.
- Add the olive oil and ground beef to a deep skillet. Cook the beef over medium heat until it is fully browned.
- Add the diced onion, bell pepper, minced garlic, basil, oregano, and pepper to the skillet. Continue to cook and stir until the onions are soft.
- Next, add the diced tomatoes (with juices), uncooked rice, and beef broth. Give everything a brief stir to combine.
- Place a lid on the skillet and turn the heat up to medium-high. Allow the broth to come up to a full boil. Once boiling, turn the heat down to low and let it continue to simmer for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, turn the heat off and let it rest, lid still in place, for another five minutes.
- While the pot is simmering, combine the tomato sauce and Worcestershire sauce.
- Once the rice has rested for 5 minutes, remove the lid and fluff it with a fork, gently folding the ingredients back together (peppers and tomatoes may float to the top while it simmers).
- Pour the prepared tomato sauce over top, then sprinkled the shredded mozzarella over the sauce. Place the lid back on top and let the heat from the skillet melt the mozzarella. Once melted, sprinkle a little chopped parsley on top and serve.
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Equipment
- Deep Stainless Steel Skillet
Nutrition
Have you tried this recipe?Mention @budgetbytes or tag #budgetbytes on Instagram!Scroll down for the step by step photos!
How to Make Unstuffed Bell Peppers – Step by Step Photos
Mince one clove of garlic and dice a yellow onion and bell pepper. Add ½ lb. ground beef to a deep skillet with 1 Tbsp olive oil. Cook the ground beef over medium heat until it has fully browned. Add the diced bell pepper, onion, garlic, 1 tsp dried basil, 1 tsp dried oregano, and about ¼ tsp freshly ground pepper to the skillet. Continue to cook and stir until the onions are soft.
Next, add one 15oz. can of diced tomatoes (with juices), 1 cup uncooked long grain white rice, and 1.5 cups beef broth to the skillet.
Give everything a brief stir to combine. Place a lid on the skillet, turn the heat up to medium-high and allow the broth to come up to a full boil. Once boiling, turn the heat down to low and let it continue to simmer for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, turn the heat off and let it rest, lid still in place, for an additional 5 minutes.
While the rice is simmering, prepare the tomato sauce. Combine one 8oz. can of tomato sauce with 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce. Set the sauce aside.
After the rice has rested for five minutes, remove the lid and fluff it with a fork, gently folding the tomatoes and peppers back into the rice.
Pour the prepared tomato sauce over the rice in the skillet, then top with 1 cup shredded mozzarella. Place the lid back on the skillet and let the residual heat melt the cheese.
Top with chopped parsley, if desired, and serve!
This was great! However due to using my larger skillet(not my usual one pot recipe pot) and my uneven heat on stove my rice didn’t cook like it should of.
Still planning to eat what I made and will definitely trying making the rice separately and mixing in later! This recipe is so easy I can see it becoming a regular of mine
Super easy and yummy! I have a shoddy apartment stove with uneven heat, so I cooked the rice separately in a rice cooker and then tossed it together with the cooked meat and veg. Since I chopped and cooked while the rice cooked, it came together super quickly! Fast, filling, and flavorful — and I bet it will reheat well. Thanks for a new regular rotation meal!
Disappointed because I was really looking forward to this one, but the rice never fully cooked even after multiple rounds of simmering for 15 minutes and letting rest for 5 minutes. I usually avoid one pot rice dishes for this reason but have never had a recipe not turn out well on Budget Bytes so I gave it a chance. Even though I followed the recipe exactly, I have to imagine it was something I did because other reviews seem so positive. If you typically have trouble with one pot rice dishes I’d advise skipping this one or cooking the rice separately which is what I might try in the future.
Flavor was great! But it was just screaming for texture. We ate it with some taco chips to give it some crunch. Wondering what else we could do to add some texture.
Carrots and Celery! They take longer to cook, and always provide a nice crunch
I’ve made this twice now, love the recipe but both times it’s taken at least 45 minutes and it was bubbling along quite nicely!
I made this recipe but I wanted something a bit healthier so I used bulgur instead of rice and also added zucchini so yummy.
We have made this a handful of times now and it’s a family favorite.
We have always made it with ground Italian sausage instead of ground hamburger; however that is the only change to this recipe we have made.
The first time we made it we were at the campground and it was so quick and simple to do even outside!
How do I deal with the tomato sauce and cheese if I’m making this as a freezer meal?
It will be reheated in the microwave at work.
This sounds great! If you wanted to make it with lentils instead of ground beef, would you cook the lentils separately and add towards the end, or add in when you add the rice, with more liquid?
I would go with the first idea. Lentils cook more like pasta than rice — and they don’t absorb as much liquid and likely don’t cook at the same rate. Cooking them separately, draining them, and then adding them toward the end would definitely ensure success. That way, you can also babysit the lentils and make sure they are cooked to your desired level of doneness without affecting the other ingredients.
If you’re interested in developing your own recipe — I totally believe in you! — and try incorporating cooking the lentils with everything else (except the rice, which in both cases I would cook separately instead of the lentils and add at the end). We have a few recipes that you could use as a baseline for the cooking techniques and then adjust the ingredient amounts called for in this recipe to get what you’re looking for!
https://www.budgetbytes.com/lentil-bolognese/
https://www.budgetbytes.com/vegetarian-shepherds-pie/
Good luck! ~ Marion :)
This is a really helpful reply :)
Hi the recipe says 2 bell pepper but then the instructions say “a yellow onion and a bell pepper,” making me rethink maybe does this require only one bell pepper??? I’m excited to eat this though! I put 2 in.
I’ll check with Beth to make sure — but I think it’s a typo! (The first image of the bell pepper in the skillet really looks like 2 peppers!) Plus, since bell peppers are kind of the main ingredient in the dish, I would say you’d want to have two in there as called for in the ingredient list. Thanks for catching that! ~ Marion :)
I make this with cauliflower rice instead of regular – basically, my step 5 is just “add cauliflower rice from frozen and let simmer for 5 minutes” and I don’t add any beef broth at all. It is absolutely delicious!
Whenever I try this, I either undercook most of the rice so it’s still crunchy, or I burn quite a bit of it on the the skillet. What am I doing wrong? I follow everything exactly, except that I usually use a full pound of ground beef instead of a half.
I didn’t create this recipe, but I’ve cooked it several times now since discovering this site. Based on the fact that you say it’s sticking and still not done, I’d say you are either cooking the rice at too high a temperature or you need to add more liquid. Reduce the heat if possible or add an additional 1/4 cup of liquid.
Also it’s worth noting, at least in my personal experience with this and similar recipes, you can cook the rice separately in the beef broth. Sometimes I’ll do this if I plan to have leftovers. 1 cup rice to 1.5 cups of beef broth, cooked on medium high. Once done, fluff and serve with the beef mixture. Try this if you are having issues with the rice being undercooked or burned when cooked with the rest of the ingredients.
Love these! There’s a classic Pittsburgh recipe that makes this into a soup – super cheap and easy stuffed pepper soup.
Made this one in the Instant Pot. Used the Saute function for the meat and veg, then tossed in the other ingredients and cooked with the Rice function. When it was done, I did a 10 minute natural release, topped with the tomato sauce and cheese, then replaced the lid to melt the cheese. It was a big hit in my house, and my husband is now asking me to please make “Pizza Rice” more often. :) I thought it was just a touch bland, so may increase the seasoning next time and/or add some salt. Overall, though, I still enjoyed it. Thanks for another good one, Beth!
Hi did you find it easier in the insta pot? Also I have a pressure cooker instead of insta pot do you think it would be okay it that?
Hi! Would swapping out ground beef for black beans be okay for this recipe?
Beans would be a great swap for beef, but you should use canned, drained beans or pre-cooked and drained beans. You shouldn’t add them at the beginning of the recipe, like you would the beef. Sweat the onions until they are softened along with the other ingredients and add the tomatoes and the drained black beans at the same time. Let us know how it turns out! XOXO
I did this, it turned out really well. I used the equivalent of about a can of black beans (I cook my own in the slow cooker and freeze in small containers).