How to Make Italian Vegetarian Stuffed Peppers
These stuffed bell peppers are dairy free and gluten free. They are delicious and totally hit all the right flavor notes for me. And it all comes down to two things: the tasty Italian and Greek-style stuffing and how you prepare the bell peppers.
The stuffing or filling mixture is dairy free and gluten free made of well-seasoned meat mixture with rice, chickpeas, and fresh parsley. For spices, I used a combination of allspice, sweet paprika and garlic powder (although 2 minced garlic cloves do the job, if you don’t have all-natural garlic powder). For this recipe I do cook this meat mixture first before stuffing the peppers.
The bell peppers. I use a variety of mild peppers here–green, red, and yellow. They do not all taste the same. Green peppers are a bit more on the savory/bitter side while red peppers tend to be sweeter. Choose what you like. For a Greek style bell peppers recipe, here is how you prepare the peppers.
Core the peppers but leave them whole. Lay each pepper on its side and cut only the top part where the stem is.
Cook the peppers well until tender. In Greek style stuffed peppers (and throughout the Mediterranean) the peppers must be cooked until fully tender, they can not be crunchy or taste raw in any way. To accomplish this, before they’re stuffed, grill the peppers for a few minutes (gas grill or indoor griddle will work) until they gain a nice char all around (great flavor)! Then, once stuffed, the peppers finish cooking in the oven, covered. A little bit of liquid in the baking dish creates some steam that cooks the peppers until they are nice and super tender.
Ingredients
Extra virgin olive oil – I used Private Reserve Greek extra virgin olive oil
Onion- 1 small yellow onion is sauteed in extra virgin olive oil to begin making the meat mixture for the stuffing.
Ground beef- ½ pound of lean ground beef (you can also use ground turkey or ground chicken). The meat will be fully browned or cooked before using in the stuffing.
Spices- 1 teaspoon ground allspice, 1 teaspoon garlic powder (or 2 minced garlic cloves) 1 teaspoon of sweet paprika, kosher salt and black pepper to taste. The spices are used at different times in creating the stuffing or the meat and rice mixture that we use to fill the bell peppers
Chickpeas- 1 cup of already cooked chickpeas (or from can).
Rice- 1 cup of white rice. Tip: wash the rice well and let it soak in plenty of water for 20 to 30 minutes or until you are able to break one grain of rice easily. This helps cook the rice quickly and evenly.
Parsley- 1 small bunch fresh parsley, chopped (Or a mixture of chopped fresh parsley and fresh dill)
Liquid: Tomato sauce and water- in order for the rice to cook well with the ground meat and chickpeas, you will need some liquid. ½ cup tomato sauce and 2 ½ cups of water provides that. The tomato sauce adds more of umami and a subtle color to the stuffing mixture, so don’t skip it if you can. You can also use ½ cup of diced tomatoes from a can in place of the tomato sauce, if you like.
Bell peppers- 6 large bell peppers, any color you choose. Like I mentioned earlier, you only need to remove the stem and the seeds, leaving the actual peppers pretty much whole.
Broth- A little more liquid is needed to bake the peppers once stuffed. I like to use ¾ cup of broth or water in the baking dish.
Guide for how to make these Greek-style stuffed peppers (print-friendly recipe below)
Cook the meat and chickpeas for the stuffing mixture
The stuffing for our bell peppers begins with meat and chickpeas. To cook them, heat 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil in a pot and add chopped onions to cook briefly, then add the ground beef and cook till fully browned. Season with kosher salt, pepper and ground allspice. Add the chickpeas and toss around to cook briefly.
Add the rice remaining stuffing ingredients and cook
Add the chopped parsley, rice (after you’ve soaked the rice in water for 20 minutes or so and drained it well), paprika and tomato sauce. Add 2 ½ cups of water and bring to a high simmer until the liquid is reduced by ½ (you want the water to reduce well enough that it is barely covering the rice mixture). Turn the heat to low and cover. Cook for 20 minutes or until the rice has absorbed all the moisture and is fully cooked through.
Grill the bell peppers
While the rice mixture is cooking, work on preparing the bell peppers. Use 6 large bell peppers. Remove the tops and seeds so that you have bell pepper shells to carry the stuffing.
Heat a grill or indoor griddle (brushed with a little olive oil) to medium-high heat and grill the bell peppers, covered for 10 minutes or so. You will need to uncover and turn the bell peppers around frequently until they have softened a bit and gained a nice color on all sides. (Tip: You can skip grilling the peppers but allow more time for baking, they do need to be quite tender to serve).