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.
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!
Need More Easy Dinner Ideas?
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Unstuffed Peppers
5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star 4.4 from 16 reviews
Author:Dan
Prep Time:5 minutes
Cook Time:15 minutes
Total Time:20 minutes
Yield:41x
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This super easy dinner recipe will help get the vegetables in your kids mouths instead of leaving them behind!
Scale
Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 1/2 pounds lean ground beef
3 cups diced bell peppers (mixed colors)
1 cup diced onion
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 1/2 tablespoons worcestershire sauce
1 1/2 teaspoons cumin
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
2 cups of tomato sauce
Instructions
Add the olive oil to a skillet over medium heat. Brown the ground beef until cooked through and drain any excess grease form the pan.
Add the peppers, onions and garlic to the beef. Stir and cook for 5-7 minutes until the vegetables are softened.
Add in the cumin, salt and pepper, soy sauce, worcestershire sauce and the tomato sauce. Stir well to combine and then taste for seasonings.
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.
Pre-cook Peppers. When you bake peppers that are not pre-blanched or cooked, it is normal that they release their natural water – which can be easily avoided by pre-cooking beforehand. ...
Use Leftover Rice. Does this tip sound familiar to you? ...
The peppers need to be par-cooked before filling so that they cook through. Many recipes call for boiling the peppers first, but I prefer to roast them – more flavor and less cleanup!
To boil bell peppers: Cook peppers, covered, in a small amount of boiling salted water for 6 to 7 minutes or until crisp-tender. To sauté bell peppers: Heat a skillet with 2 to 3 tablespoons of cooking oil over medium-high heat. Carefully add bell peppers and cook until just tender, about 10 minutes.
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.
Pre-cooking is the idea of quick-starting the cooking process of your stuffed pepper. Since stuffed peppers can take as long as 45 minutes to bake, shortening that down with a quick boil really helps me out.
Filleting a pepper is the best way to easily separate the seeds and pith from the flesh. Doing this allows you to get the most pepper flavor possible with the least amount of heat.
The problem stems from the common practice of boiling the peppers to start. 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.
Stuffed green peppers are a meal in itself so I prepare a fresh tossed salad with French bread. Or dinner rolls. What are some good side dishes to serve with stuffed green peppers? Scalloped potatoes, buttered noodles, a small sweet potato, sliced and fried squash, a salad, cole slaw —- just to name a few.
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.
You can bake them at 450°F for 25-30 minutes, depending on the size of your pepper, or if you prefer your pepper on the softer side, try dropping your oven temperature down to 350°F and bake for 45 minutes. Alternatively, you can pre-cook the peppers for a few minutes in boiling water to speed things up.
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.
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.
Most traditional Italian recipes (there are several, “Bolognese” is just one) begin with vegetables (not only onion but carrot and celery as well) sauteed in olive oil (or another fat, such as lard or pancetta), and add the meat only later.
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Introduction: My name is Cheryll Lueilwitz, I am a sparkling, clean, super, lucky, joyous, outstanding, lucky person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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