Well, I have bell peppers, ground meat and rice. Don’t know what else is required . Most recipes I have seen seem too complicated.
For the stuffing, my wife mixes the meat and rice with salt, pepper, onions, tomato sauce or paste, but that’s about all I know. She cooks the meat, usually ground beef or turkey first, and the rice gets cooked beforehand as well.
They get put in a Pyrex or similar dish, covered with foil and into the oven it goes. How long and at what temp, I don’t know, either, but it does take a while to cook (at least 30 minutes). I imagine the bell peppers take their time getting done.
She’s asleep now, but I’ll ask her for details tomorrow. But, I don’t think it’s too difficult.
You have home grown peppers now, or are these store bought? Our plants are just now starting to bear.
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Yeah, been having bell peppers for about 3 weeks now. Only ones I grow. The hot ones won’t let me sleep. Been having the bells in pressure cooked stews. Okra too.
Something ate half of a bell peppers right on the plant.
Guess I could freeze some of my bells.
Ask your wife for a recipe for a dummy. 
1 cup brown (or white) rice, 2 1/2 cups water
2 pounds ground beef (I prefer 80/20 or 88/12)
32 ounces tomato sauce (takes about 20 large or 40 small Roma tomatoes to make the sauce)
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 medium onion
2 large cloves garlic
Italian seasoning to taste.
1 cup of brown (or white) rice and 2 1/2 cups water, boil then simmer in a pan about 20 minutes until the rice is tender.
Brown 2 pounds of ground beef in a cast iron skillet adding a medium sized chopped onion and 2 cloves of garlic finely chopped just before it finishes. Pour off the grease and put the ground beef and onion/garlic in a bowl. Add 16 ounces of tomato sauce, 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and pepper to taste.
12 to 16 ripe or green bell peppers, carefully core and remove seed, then place in a deep baking dish open side up. Spoon the above mix into the peppers then pour some more tomato sauce into the tops of the peppers and lightly dust with Italian seasoning. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes at 350 degrees. Every 15 minutes, pour more tomato sauce into the tops of the peppers and baste the sides of the peppers with it. Avoid burning the sides of the peppers if you can.
I also prefer to finely chop a small hot pepper (cayenne or similar) or add a small amount of hot pepper sauce to the stuffing mix. I also sometimes use soy sauce instead of or in addition to the Worcestershire sauce.
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I don’t make traditional stuffed peppers. I use Italian sausage and cream cheese. No rice. I never wrote a recipe down. I should!
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Nice recipe!
I’ll probably end up liking a recipe that is not traditional. I’m wondering if a crock pot could be used to cook the stuffed bell peppers in.
I asked my wife, she said the recipe I gave was mostly right, but she also adds garlic. In addition to cooking the meat and rice first, she said she boils the peppers in a pot to help soften them up before stuffing them.
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Use wild rice instead of white rice. Also add sliced mushrooms! My wife did this once when making stuffed peppers and it was great. We now do the same when making cabbage rolls too.
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My research shows that almost anything can be used to stuff peppers! Yeah, I was thinking about adding mushrooms. They are said to help with indigestion.
In the next day or two I’ll try my first batch. Probably take @Fusion_power recipe, reduce the amount of the ingredients by half and change an item or two. Oh, and I will use ground venison instead of ground beef because that is what I have. Just do not know the percentages of lean and fat. When I ground it I just threw in some fat without measuring anything.
I do the same thing with zucchinis. I use sausage and cream cheese like you along with a little bit of diced up jalapeños. We then cut zucchinis in half long ways and hollow them out a little. We bake the zucchinis about 20 minutes and then put the mix in them and cook for another 20 minutes or so. Call them zucchini boats. Darn good and a good way to get rid of extra zucchini.
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That sounds good! I will certainly keep that in mind. I like using Italian sausage, but use what works for you. I’ll post a recipe on mine. I like the addition of jalapeños! Not in my recipe. I like using Italian sausage as it goes so well with peppers.
Italian Sausage stuffed peppers
Ingredients
1 pound Italian sausage
14 ounces of peppers halved or hollowed,cleaned.
Whatever kind of pepper you wish to use.
1 1/2 tsp of dried Oregano
1 cup about 3oz of Parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1x 8 oz package of cream cheese
1 egg yolk
olive oil
2 large garlic cloves or garlic powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
Directions:
Saute sausage and oregano in large skillet over medium high heat until sausage is cooked through and brown. Break up sausage as cooking about 7-10 minutes. Use a slotted spoon transfer sausage mixture
to large bowl and cool. Mix in 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, reserve the other half. Mince garlic and add
to mixture along with Worcestershire sauce, Mix well then cream cheese, salt and pepper. Add egg yolk
and mix well.
Coat a 15x10 or so baking dish with olive oil or non stick spray.
Prep peppers how you like, halved or whole hollowed out.
Fill peppers with mixture and align in the baking dish. I use corning-ware.
Sprinkle the remaining cheese on top of filling. More cheese can be used if you wish.
Dish can be prepared a day ahead and chilled.
Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. 45-50 minutes if chilled. Your times may vary.
I have pickled peppers with various spices and sugar to make a kind of candy sweet pickled pepper and those work well with this too. Makes it a completely different dish.
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I usually go with some combo of ground meat, veggies (chili peppers, onions, beans, sometimes squash, etc.) and polenta. I would mix a little shredded cheese throughout, plus more cheese on top that can get a slightly toasted/crispy.
It’s important to pre-cook everything at least some, as the heat just doesn’t cook through the pepper well enough to avoid burning it before the stuffing is done.
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My mother was a very good cook and used Minute brand instant rice with uncooked hamburger meat in her recipe. The rice is cooked with the juices in the meat, and so what could be easier than that? Just use a recipe with the ingredients and sauce you like, but instead of cooking ahead of time and doing all that extra work, mix the ingredients into the raw meat, stuff the peppers, and then cook them at 350 about an hour and use a meat thermometer to be sure they are done.
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Seems reasonable to me!
Having never dealt with rice before all this terminology as to brown, wild, or instant rice is new to me. I have always thought of rice as being only white. However, using instant rice is interesting to me because of the simplicity. I’ll have to check to see whether or not I have a meat thermometer.
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Caution that using raw meat usually results in partially burnt peppers. Ask me how I know this.
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Here is my first try at stuffing peppers! Mostly following @Fusion_power recipe.
Not perfect because I really did not cook it enough. The peppers ended up sort of crisp like fresh peppers. Still good though.
Hopefully I will get better. Thanks to all.
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I never stuff my peppers raw as they do stay too crisp for me after cooking. I blanch in boiling water for a few minutes then drain and cool before stuffing the peppers.
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