My family primarily prepares this traditional Lithuanian dish during the holiday season. It complements ham or turkey beautifully. A lot of genuine European eateries also serve it. Although this recipe takes some time, the effort is certainly worth it. This dish is meant to “stick to your ribs” and is neither low-calorie nor nutritious. The perfect topping for each piece is a dollop of sour cream.
| Prep Time: | 30 mins |
| Cook Time: | 1 hr 20 mins |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 50 mins |
| Servings: | 6 |
| Yield: | 6 servings |
Ingredients
- ½ cup cooked rice
- 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
- ⅛ cup minced carrots
- ⅛ cup celery
- 6 bell peppers (any color) stems and seeds removed, cut in half lengthwise
- ½ pound ground beef
- ¼ pound pancetta or lightly smoked bacon, diced
- 1 ½ cups prepared marinara sauce
- ¼ cup red wine
- ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- ⅓ cup heavy cream
- ½ cup grated Parmesan cheese, divided
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
- Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Stir in the carrots and celery; cook and stir until the vegetables are tender, about 5 minutes.
- Stir in ground beef and pancetta, and cook until browned and crumbled; drain off any excess liquid, and return to heat. Add marinara sauce, wine, and red pepper flakes, and simmer for 10 minutes. Stir in cream, half of the Parmesan cheese, and rice. Simmer 5 minutes more, or until most liquid has absorbed.
- Place peppers in a shallow baking dish, and fill with beef mixture. Drizzle with remaining olive oil and top with remaining Parmesan cheese.
- Bake, uncovered, for 30 minutes in the preheated oven. Serve hot.
- Orzo pasta makes a nice substitute for the rice.
- If you don’t have leftover rice, bring 1/2 cup rice and 3/4 cup water to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer until water is absorbed, about 20 minutes. Let rice stand for 5 minutes; fluff with fork. You’ll have a little extra rice.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 310 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 17 g |
| Cholesterol | 54 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 3 g |
| Protein | 14 g |
| Saturated Fat | 8 g |
| Sodium | 511 mg |
| Sugars | 6 g |
| Fat | 20 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
I loved this recipe!!! Delicious but I like my peppers really fully stuffed so I doubled the filling. Very tasty!
Made this with my jarred Bolognese! Just added rice and made the left over sauce into meatballs by adding an egg and some sourdough breadcrumbs. Looks really good. Now it’s on to cooking it up.
great
I made this and took out the pork and replaced with mushrooms and a little salt. It was delicious.
Very good. I changed it up with ingredients I had. Ground pork instead of beef and onions instead of carrots and celery. No bacon because I used ground pork.
I subbed red vermouth for the wine and lactose-free whole fat milk for the heavy cream. There was little, if any, taste/texture difference.
Oh. My. God… why have I never made stuffed peppers before? These are amazing!!!
Easy enough to make and sooooo good. I will recommend it. I made it with 3 serving and it was enough for 2 people and some left over for lunch.
Very good however one of those meals that’s even better reheated the next day. Next time I think I may make it a day ahead so the filling has time to enhance the flavor over night in the fridge
Well done on this recipe! If you put some water in the roasting pan and cover the peppers you can avoid blanching the peppers. They come out tender and tasty. Double the filling fir sure and I added 1/2 pound ground pork instead of doubling the beef. Absolutely awesome!
It was very good, but I also added garlic and onions to the mixture. My 6 year old grandson was eating with us, so I just made his in a small baking dish. It was very good!
This was soooooo much better than I expected it to be… made it exactly as written using bacon, but did add some Panko to the cheese topping and doubled the filling, which yielded me 8 filled peppers and plenty of filling to snack on, which was a blessing as it was sooooooo good! Will definitely be making this over and over.
AMAZING recipe! I added chopped onion, garlic powder, salt, pepper & shredded mozzarella. I also doubled the sauce and next time I’ll make even more. We like our peppers a little saucy but that does not take away from the recipe. A really great recipe that’s easy to follow! Definitely a keeper
Absolutely delicious!! I made a double batch. Honestly, I like the bolognese alone better than with the red pepper. My son loved this recipe as well. Thank you Chef John!!
I loved this recipe as it’s different from my traditional stuffed peppers. I parboiled my peppers For 10 mins after cleaning them since they were pretty thick (fleshy) and used venison instead of beef. It’s very lean so I added a little extra olive oil. Very tasty! Thanks for sharing.
Definitely one of my favorite new recipes! Absolutely delicious! I simplified by using 1 lb of Italian sausage, added garlic and onion to veggie sauté, and did not blanch peppers, simply broiled everything on Lo for a couple of minutes at the end of 30 bake time. Love the crunch of the peppers with the delicious filling. Will definitely be adding this to a monthly rotation.
Best recipe EVER! Delicious. For carb conscious eaters, I leave out the rice. So gooood!!
Delicious. Used ground pork and beef, a little more than the recipe asked for. Also added some mushroom. Wish I took a picture it looked as good as it tasted.
These were delicious! The bacon made such a difference. I made these and packed some to go for a friend. Boy, I’m sorry I did! LOL. The whole family asked for more!
I used 4 peppers, 1/2 lb ground beef and 1/2 lb pork. Used some onion and garlic as well. Used quinoa instead of rice. Blanched the peppers first for about 5 min or so. Recipe was very good.
Absolutely a keeper! I added minced onions along with the carrots and celery. The peppers were on sale for $1 and I thought this recipe would be the best way to put those peppers to use and make a delicious, nutritious and very affordable meal