Try these Unstuffed Peppers for an easy, healthy dinner! Our kids actually EAT the peppers when we cut them up and mix them in with the seasoned beef!
Who doesn’t love easy, 15 minute dinners like this? Be sure and try our equally easy Beefy Tomato Soup or this 8 minute air fryer or 15 minute oven dinner, Chinese Boneless Spareribs!
A Dinner Recipe Your Kids Will Love!
Do you love making stuffed peppers? I mean, yes, I do. But my kids will hungrily eat the filling out and leave that big pepper behind. Recently we’ve made more stuffed pepper recipes that I absolutely LOVE. And I have to say our kids actually do eat the pepper now, we’ve got ’em trained;)
I can’t say too much, I did that too for most of my life. We weren’t a big vegetable family growing up so the bowl of frozen peas and carrots was only on the table for special occasions or holidays.
Now we try and have fresh vegetables on the table every night, or at least a dinner that involves vegetables like stuffed peppers. So to prevent our kids from just eating the filling we created this Unstuffed Pepper recipe instead.
All you need to do is dice the peppers and cook them with the beef and onions when you make the “filling”, but the filling is the dinner.
Once you add the tomato sauce and let the beef simmer together with the vegetables…you won’t be able to stop eating it right from the pan.
How Do You Serve These Unstuffed Peppers?
We like to serve this recipe over rice or pasta like elbow macaroni (really any pasta will do, it’s almost like a meat sauce with peppers) but you can also serve it over cauliflower rice for a low carb dinner!
Piling this beef filling on buns like a peppery sloppy joe also works. A topping for nachos, add beans and make a quick chili…there’s so many things you can do with this Unstuffed Peppers recipe besides just eating it as is!
Do I Have To Make This Recipe With Beef?
Nope, you can use ground turkey or pork or even ground chicken or lamb. The peppers kind of have to stay or this wouldn’t be a twist on a stuffed pepper recipe but you can definitely swap out the type of meat.
On that note, you can absolutely sneak more vegetables into this recipe, too! We have teenage boys in our house now so we’re WAY past trying to get our kids to eat.
WAY past that. Now we just try and keep our refrigerators full of food. Going to the grocery store every 2 or 3 days is not unheard if. ALL THEY DO IS EAT.
But I do feel like we gave them a good food foundation, not making too many separate meals when they were young (I won’t say never, just not often) and introducing them to all sorts of different foods as much as we could. Dinner recipes like this one definitely helped when they were younger, they ate this up like rock stars, and still do!
Cook the whole green peppers, uncovered in boiling water for about 5 minutes; invert to drain well. Sprinkle insides of the peppers lightly with salt. In a skillet cook ground beef, onion and 1/4 cup chopped pepper till meat is browned and vegetables are tender. Drain off excess fat.
Yes, you can absolutely stuff peppers with raw meat. In fact, using raw meat allows for a longer cooking time, allowing the flavors to meld together and creating a delicious and moist filling inside the peppers. Just make sure to cook them thoroughly to avoid any food safety concerns.
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.
When it comes to seasoning your ground beef, wait until after it has been browned and drained. Adding salt to raw ground beef pulls out moisture, drying the meat out and creating steam while it cooks, which prevents it from browning properly.
Place the ground meat in a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. The most important trick to browning ground beef is using a wooden spoon ($6, Amazon) or heatproof spatula to break up the meat into equal-size pieces as it cooks. This ensures that all the ground beef pieces brown evenly.
Cut the tops off bell peppers and remove the seeds. Cook bell peppers in boiling water for 5 minutes; drain. Sprinkle salt inside each bell pepper and set aside. Place ground beef and onion in a large skillet over medium heat; cook and stir until beef is browned, about 5 minutes.
To cook ground beef with peppers and onions, there are two good options. You can start by sautéing the peppers and onions in oil or butter until the peppers are soft and the onion is translucent, then add the ground beef and continue to cook together.
Raw food and cooked food should be stored separately in the fridge. Bacteria from raw food can contaminate cold cooked food, and the bacteria can multiply to dangerous levels if the food is not cooked thoroughly again. Always store raw food in sealed or covered containers at the bottom of the fridge.
The goal is to tenderize them before they're stuffed and baked, but generally the poor fellas are over-boiled, which results in their tendency to fall apart and, as noted, be flavorless. But peppers can have tons of flavor when given the right treatment. The trick is to roast them at high heat.
In addition to not getting enough water, some other possible causes of bitter peppers are: Ripening: Peppers grow sweeter as they ripen and turn from green to red, orange, yellow, or purple. For the sweetest peppers, be sure they're fully ripe before picking.
The thing about most stuffed bell pepper recipes is 3that they call for salt in the filling, not for the peppers themselves. Without salt, the peppers are flabby and bland, merely a filling case. With a sprinkle of salt, they transform into a sweet and powerfully savory part of the dish.
Remember, stuffed peppers usually cook for up to 45 minutes, so pre-cooking the peppers while you work on the stuffing saves you time. The first method is boiling. For this route, place the peppers in a large pot and cover them with water.
The bell pepper is the fruit of plants in the Grossum Group of the species Capsicum annuum. Cultivars of the plant produce fruits in different colors, including red, yellow, orange, green, white, chocolate, candy cane striped, and purple.
Pour a small amount of water into the bottom of the baking dish and drizzle the peppers with a little olive oil. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake until the peppers are soft and the cheese is melted and lightly browned, another 15 to 20 minutes.
Cook the meat first to get that caramelization, then take it out and add in your veggies. The veggies will absorb all of the meaty flavors and scrape up all the delicious bits it left behind. In the end, you'll get caramelized, flavorful meat and tender, not mushy veggies.
Add the onions and chopped bell peppers and cook, stirring, until soft, about 3 minutes. Add the beef, pork, garlic, parsley, salt, black pepper, and pepper flakes. Cook until the meat is browned, stirring with a heavy wooden spoon to break up the lumps, about 6 minutes. Add the rice and tomato sauce and stir well.
Meat first, then vegetables – If you want meat or seafood in your stir fry, cook it first then scoop it out onto a separate plate before cooking the vegetables. You'll add the meat back in at the end.
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