These Stuffed Bell Peppers are an easy and healthy dinner recipe that you can make with a variety of filling options, including ground beef, turkey, rice, cheese, tomatoes, and more!
Be sure to try my Egg Roll in a Bowl recipe next!
Stuffed Bell Peppers
Stuffed Peppers are a must all year round, and there’s no better way to make use of fresh garden peppers than with this recipe. It’s hearty, delicious, easy to customize, and makes a great make-ahead meal.
Trust me when I say, this filling is like no other filling you’ve ever tried. The traditional components include ground beef and sausage along with garlic, onions, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, rice, and cheddar cheese.
The ingredients that make this better than any other are the chicken broth (depth of flavor), Worcestershire and hot sauce (flavor enhancers, the hot sauce doesn’t make it spicy), and the brown sugar (a hint of sweetness to offset the acidity from the tomatoes).
This is definitely one recipe your family will want again and again. Be sure to check out my pro tips below!
How to Make It
See recipe card below this post for ingredient quantities and full instructions.
Slice the top off of the peppers and remove the seeds/membranes. Place them top-side-down in a casserole dish with water. Cover and steam them for 20 minutes. Remove water and place the peppers back in the casserole dish. While the peppers steam, prepare the filling.
Prepare the meat/sauce/rice mixture and fill the middle of each bell pepper. Cover and bake for 20 minutes.
Remove cover and top with cheese. Bake uncovered for 10 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and the peppers are tender. Remove and serve!
Do You Have to Cook Peppers Before Stuffing Them?
- Some recipes call for boiling, blanching, or steaming bell peppers before stuffing them, while others leave the peppers raw. No matter what, the peppers require at least 50 minutes of cooking time to have the ideal finished texture.
- For this reason, I like to let the peppers steam in the casserole dish for 20 minutes in the oven while the filling is being prepared. This cuts down on overall preparation time as we’re overlapping tasks, but also allows the pepper to release some water as well, (raw bell peppers are 92% water).
Make Ahead Method
- Steam the peppers and prepare the filling as outlined. Stuff each pepper.
- Cover and refrigerate for up to 2 days or freeze for up to 3 months.
- Let frozen peppers thaw completely before baking.
- When ready to bake, cover and bake at 350° for 45 minutes if baking from a cold state. Remove the cover and top with cheese. Bake for 10 more minutes, or until the cheese is melted and the pepper is tender.
Pro Tips
- You can use any combination of meat that you want to equal 1 ¼ lbs. Ground beef, sausage, turkey and pork are great.
- The hot sauce is a flavor enhancer and doesn’t make this spicy. I used Frank’s Hot Sauce.
- If you do want to kick up the heat, add a little extra hot sauce, a pinch of cayenne, and diced tomatoes with green chilies instead of regular diced tomatoes. Hot Habanero cheese can also be used instead of regular cheddar.
- Choose peppers that are close to the same size so that they cook at the same rate.
- The bottom of the peppers should be relatively flat so that they can stay upright. If needed, take a very thin slice of the bottom of each pepper (without creating a hole), to make it stand more upright. If you accidentally cut too much, take the piece that you’ve cut off and insert it in the same spot on the inside of the pepper to ensure that filling stays inside.
- The tops of the peppers can be diced and added to the meat mixture when the garlic is added, or they can be saved for another recipe!
- Other colors can be used other than green peppers if desired.
- It may seem counterintuitive to use chicken broth for the beef filling in this recipe, but it adds a delicious depth of flavor that contrasts well with the beef.
- I use Cracker Barrel Sharp Yellow Cheese for this recipe. Mozzarella or Monterey Jack are great choices as well.
- Cauliflower rice can be used instead of regular rice to make this keto friendly.
Storage
- Store in an airtight container and refrigerate for up to 3 days or freeze for up to 3 months.
- Leftovers can be reheated in a microwave or in a covered casserole dish at 350° for 15-20 minutes.
Tools For This Recipe
(Amazon affiliate links)- Check out all of my kitchen essentials here.
- 9 x 13-inch Casserole Dish
- Chef’s Knife
- Cheese Grater– Cheese shredded fresh from a block will melt and taste better than packaged shredded cheese.
- Better Than Bouillon– This is what I always use for broth in my recipes. It takes very little space and makes it easy to measure out customized amounts of broth.
Try These Next
- Shrimp Fra Diavolo
- Chicken Parmesan
- Easy Chili Recipe
- Baked Ravioli
- Creamy Chicken Pasta
- Manicotti
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Tried This Recipe?
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![Stuffed Bell Peppers in a casserole dish with a meat filling and cheese on top.](jpg/stuffed-bell-peppers-f-200x200.jpg)
Stuffed Bell Peppers
Ingredients
- 6 bell peppers, of roughly equal size
- 1-2 tablespoons olive oil
- ¾ lb. ground beef
- ½ lb. ground Italian sausage, spicy or mild
- 1 small yellow onion, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- Salt/Pepper
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- 1 tablespoon brown sugar
- 14.5 oz. diced tomatoes, undrained
- 1 ½ cups marinara sauce, I love Rao’s
- ½ cup chicken broth
- 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1 teaspoon hot sauce
- 1.5 cups cooked rice
- 1 ½ cups cheddar cheese, shredded
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add 1 ½ cups water to a 9x13-inch casserole dish. Cut the tops of each pepper and remove the seeds/membranes.
- Place the whole peppers top-side-down in the casserole dish. Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes. Remove water from the casserole dish once finished and set the peppers aside.
- While the peppers steam, prepare the filling.
- Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the ground beef and sausage and season it with salt and pepper. Cook and crumble it for 3 minutes. Add the onions and cook for 5 more minutes, or until the meat is brown and cooked through. Drain grease. Reduce heat to medium and add garlic and Italian seasoning.
- Add the tomato paste and brown sugar and stir to combine. Add the diced tomatoes, marinara sauce, chicken broth, Worcestershire sauce, and hot sauce. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Let it bubble gently and reduce/concentrate for 15 minutes or until little excess liquid remains. Stir in the cooked rice and heat through for 1-2 minutes. Remove from heat.
- Fill each pepper with an even amount of filling and place in the casserole dish. Cover and bake for 20 minutes. Remove cover and top with cheese. (If there is any excess space around the edges of the pepper, I like to push cheese down into those spaces.) Bake for 10 more minutes, or until the cheese is melted and the peppers are tender. Serve!
Notes
- You can use any combination of meat that you want to equal 1 ¼ lbs. Ground beef, sausage, turkey and pork are great.
- The hot sauce is a flavor enhancer and doesn't make this spicy. I used Frank's Hot Sauce.
- If you do want to kick up the heat, add a little extra hot sauce, a pinch of cayenne, and diced tomatoes with green chilies instead of regular diced tomatoes. Hot Habanero cheese can also be used instead of regular cheddar.
- The tops of the peppers can be diced and added to the meat mixture when the garlic is added, or they can be saved for another recipe!
- Cauliflower rice can be used instead of regular rice to make this keto friendly.
Make-Ahead Method
- Steam the peppers and prepare the filling as outlined. Stuff each pepper.
- Cover and refrigerate for up to 2 days or freeze for up to 3 months.
- Let frozen peppers thaw completely before baking.
- When ready to bake, cover and bake at 350° for 45 minutes if baking from a cold state. Remove the cover and top with cheese. Bake for 10 more minutes, or until the cheese is melted and the pepper is tender.
Storage
- Store in an airtight container and refrigerate for up to 3 days or freeze for up to 3 months.
- Leftovers can be reheated in a microwave or in a covered casserole dish at 350° for 15-20 minutes.
Nutritional information is an estimate and is per pepper. This recipe makes 6 stuffed peppers.
Flavors were really good! My boyfriend suggested that I layer the stuffing with cheese. We also broiled the stuffed peppers at the end to brown the cheese. I was left over with lots of stuffing and I’m not sure why, but I’m going to use the left overs to stuff it in mini bell peppers.
I’m so glad that you liked it Karen! Maybe you had leftover stuffing from adding layers of cheese inside of the pepper? I use the filling for 6 large bell peppers, (you can see from the process shots that they’re big), and filled to the very top! 🙂 I also have a Stuffed Pepper Soup recipe that you could try using that leftover filling for! 🙂
I did this for the leftover filling. My order was doubled for a meal prep and had a lot of leftover filling, so I added 4 cups of low sodium chicken broth and made a tasty soup.
Such a clever way to make use of leftovers Mike!! Nicely done!
Thank you so much I love this recipe. This was my first time completing it and I think I did really good but my first try lol. My measuring was a bit off but it’s OK. It came out very delicious.
Great job! I’m so happy you’re enjoying this one. Thanks for taking the time to leave a review💖
Really tasty, I added about halfaup of currants for a little surprise sweetness.
What a great addition Judith, yummmm!😋 Thanks so much for the great review!
Dearest Stephanie,
You are a genius!!! Brilliant dish! Soooo good! I will be making this once a week as I am a huge green pepper fan! The stuffing was perfect! And thanks so much for the tip on steaming the peppers … they were perfect!😋 I had a bit of stuffing left over so I added a 1/2 Block of cream cheese and stuffed some mini peppers I had … another WOWZA moment!🥰
I’m SO happy that you loved this recipe Tauni!! I never used to be a big stuffed pepper person, but then I created this recipe and just fell in LOVE! You’ll have to try my Stuffed Pepper Soup when it gets cold out!! You’d love it! (It’s my husband’s favorite soup I’ve ever made!)
I skipped the sausage and just used ground beef**
These were delicious, the seasonings were top notch. I might even just make the filling and rice and throw those together to eat for a meal one day.
Would the filling be just as tasty if you froze it and then thawed later to make the meal.again another time?
Hi Jenn! I’m so happy that you love it!! The filling is definitely okay to freeze and reheat! ❤️
We tried this recipe for dinner tonight and it was a winner. Other recipes for stuffed peppers that I had tried were just bland but this one – oh my goodness, so full of flavor! My husband helped me with the cooking and we could have eaten the “stuffing” all by itself it was just that delicious. His suggestion was that this would be good over chicken on top of a bed of angel hair pasta. I said it would be good with shrimp in it and just eat it like gumbo. It is amazing! Thanks for a great recipe.
I’m so happy it was such a success Betty, I love the other ways you want to incorporate the stuffing, yummmm! Thanks so much for taking the time to leave a review!💖