Folks, I don’t have a recipe. I just make them . . they’re something I’ve made for years. I’ll tell you how I make them, without giving any specific measurements and maybe you can make it work for you.
Someone asked if they get mushy. They get soft but I wouldn’t consider them mushy. I cut the top and the seeds out of them and submerge them in boiling water til they’re almost soft, take them out, drain them and let them cool before stuffing them. I’ve found that stuffing them without any advance prep, and them baking them, they usually don’t get real tender.
Several mentioned lining a dish with plastic wrap, freezing the food in there, then lifting the contents out and wrapping that or putting it in a freezer bag to save on dishes. I have plenty (more than plenty) of dishes and I never do that. I just haven’t unpacked everything yet. I pretty much always freeze things in the dish I’m going to bake them in.
There are two ways that I make stuffed peppers. If have small to medium peppers, I stuff those so that we each have our own pepper. A lot of times with peppers in my garden, I’ll pick them when they’re fairly small because the plants are so loaded. If I pick a bunch of small ones and stuff them, then leave some on the plants, they’ll grow larger for other uses. If I’m buying peppers and they’re priced by the “each”, I’ll get the biggest ones I can find! If the peppers are huge, I’ll half them and make more like a “layered casserole” instead of stuffing whole peppers.
When making peppers that are individually stuffed, I don’t put as much “tomato” in the mix and then I make a sauce to go over the peppers when I’m baking them. If the peppers are larger and I’m cutting them in half and making the layered casserole type dish, I mix all the tomato sauce into the stuffing mix.
Here’s basically how I do it. For the 7 dinners the other night, the ingredients are in parenthesis.
Brown ground meat, drain if necessary. Add chopped onions and garlic. (3 pounds ground beef, 2 onions, 3 T. chopped garlic)
Add tomato sauce or spaghetti sauce (I used 1 quart of home canned tomatoes and 1 quart of home canned spaghetti sauce)
Add salt and pepper to taste. Cook til there’s not a lot of liquid remaining.
Stir in cooked rice — however much you want. (I used 1-1/2 cups raw rice but cooked it before adding it to the mix). Continue cooking til the liquid is gone.
Spoon a little of this into the bottom of the baking dishes. Add a pepper or half a pepper that has been steamed or simmered til tender. Spoon more stuffing mixture on top. Cool and freeze or bake at 350 for about 20 minutes.
Helen says
Mmh, sounds good. My husband uses barley as well as rice because I love barley. It’s amazing how many variations of a recipe there are. I suspect he throws in other veggies that need using up. All I know is that it tastes good. Vince is a lucky guy to get such tasty food.
Sherry says
I also parboil my peppers because it not only makes the peppers tender but it keeps the pepper from getting bitter. We love stuffed peppers.
Dawn-Marie says
I make mine in the crockpot. This way you don’t have to boil the peppers first or cook anything in advance. I just mix all the ingredients together raw stuff the pepper put it in the pot and when I come home from work they are supper tender.
Nann says
I grew up with Stouffer’s frozen stuffed peppers….as an adult I learned how easy they are to make, and how much tastier they are fresh than frozen. I haven’t made them for a long time, though. Thanks for the inspiration!
Kathleen S. says
Judy, can you tag this entry as Recipes so it comes up when I click the recipes tab? It’s too delish not to want to find it again. Thanks!
CindyM says
I loved stuffed peppers and peppers are so good for you. I’m a soup-a-holic and make stuffed pepper soup, too. I hardly ever go by exact recipes when I cook..l. especially soup., but Gina over at skinnytaste.com has a simple recipe for it:
http://www.skinnytaste.com/2011/12/stuffed-pepper-soup.html
carol c says
3# of ground beef? oh my how many peppers does this make please
DH will not eat leftovers-lol, I only better make 2 or 3 at a time
JudyL says
In the post that I had previously mentioned, and which folks were asking about my recipe, I showed 7 separate meals so that’s 3 pounds of ground beef for 7 meals, and most of those meals were enough for us to have dinner and a lunch from the leftovers.
I also state in this post that this was enough for 7 meals.
Betty says
I generally steam my whole peppers (after I cut out the top and ribs) in the microwave. covered with Saran wrap, just like I would steam any vegetable. It goes so much faster than boiling them. Otherwise, my recipe is about the same as yours.