This traditional comfort dish, stuffed peppers, is from the past. They used to be regularly made by my mother. Ground beef and rice are placed inside of green bell peppers, which are then covered in a tangy tomato sauce. Like my mother did, I always serve them with buttery mashed potatoes.
| Prep Time: | 30 mins |
| Cook Time: | 1 hr 30 mins |
| Total Time: | 2 hrs |
| Servings: | 4 |
Ingredients
- 4 medium green bell peppers, tops and seeds removed
- 1 (28 ounce) can tomato sauce
- ¼ cup white vinegar
- 1 ½ pounds lean ground beef
- 1 cup leftover cooked white rice
- ½ cup Italian-style bread crumbs
- 6 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
- ¼ cup finely chopped onion
- 1 large egg, lightly beaten
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
Instructions
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add peppers and boil until softened, 4 to 5 minutes. Transfer peppers to a colander and run under cold water to cool.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Stir tomato sauce and vinegar together in a bowl.
- Mix ground beef, cooked rice, bread crumbs, 4 tablespoons Parmesan, onion, egg, garlic powder, salt, and pepper together in a large bowl until well combined. Spoon beef mixture into peppers. Place peppers into a 9×13-inch baking dish with the stuffing facing up. Pour tomato sauce mixture over peppers, then sprinkle remaining 2 tablespoons Parmesan over top.
- Bake in the preheated oven, basting peppers with sauce several times, until beef filling is no longer pink in the center, about 1 hour 20 minutes. An instant-read thermometer inserted into the center should read at least 160 degrees F (70 degrees C).
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 557 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 39 g |
| Cholesterol | 165 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 6 g |
| Protein | 43 g |
| Saturated Fat | 10 g |
| Sodium | 1510 mg |
| Sugars | 12 g |
| Fat | 26 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
I made the recipe but skipped step 1..I stuffed the meat mixture in the pepper without boiling them..came out great!
YUMMY!!!
I didn’t have sauce so I used vegetable juice. Recipe made 8 sm-med peppers and was quite easy to make.
It is an amazing recipe. Very close to the one I whipped up. Never thought of using the egg though. Delicious! Thanks for sharing.
This is a great recipe. My Mother made this as well but I kick it up a notch. Ok, a couple of notches. I add carmelized garlic and onion, celery and diced green chilis and I use 1/2 Italian Sweet Sausage and 1/2 Ground Sirloin for the meat mix. Sometimes all Sausage for even more flavor. My husband would eat these every night and even the 4 picky kids loved them. Sometimes I even use Rice Pilaf mix, rather than white rice. I change it up almost every time, but what reminds me of my Mother’s recipe is the Italian Bread Crumbs. Oh, and hers were so nice and neat in the pan; mine are chock-full and spilling all over the pan. The best part for me is the spilled-over insides that are slightly burned and sticking to the pan! Yummers! Super recipe and great memories of your Mom!!! (I just sent hubby to grocery store so I can make these tonight. See what you have done!!!)
Pretty bland and a lot of trouble. Need to drop old fashioned useless parboiling, up the seasonings and perk up the sauce. I added an envelope of onion soup mix to the filling and made a sweet sour sauce from a can of whole cranberry sauce and a can of tomato sauce. Much better!
Super good!!!
I used yellow peppers, a personal preference for sweeter, softer skin. Also, browned and drained the ground beef in advance. Got rave reviews.
I made these tonight! My husband is very hard to please, he raved about them!! The only thing I changed was I added mozzarella on top and melted in the last 15 minutes of cooking. They are delicious. Great recipe!
These are a huge hit I’m with even my picky teen. The only change I made was I chopped up the pepper tops and added it to the meat mixture. Soooo good. Had a lot of meat mixture left over and made a meat loaf out of it. Double whammy ??
This is a great recipe. For others with negative reviews, perhaps try a sauce like fire roasted tomato and garlic That’s what I used and this came out picture perfect.
Perfection!
i used bell and banana peppers and actually LOVED the banana peppers even more than the bell. I also added some garlic in the meat while browning, added some mozzarella in with the mixture as well
Made it! Loved it! I did make a few changes due to lack of ingredients. I used Minute Rice uncooked, Classico Tomato:Basil sauce. I did have a small can of Tomato Sauce that I poured on the bottom of the pan. The basting is key to a flavorful Stuffed Pepper. Next I will try the soup version! Thanks for sharing!
I thought it was great, but used marinara sauce instead of tomato sauce, I will make it again, also used trio of red, yellow and green peppers. It will good and nice to look at.
This was super good! I used almond flour instead of bread crumbs and herb de provence for the italian! I had some extra meat filling so I made meatballs with that…worked out perfect for the little people who are not pepper lovers!
Followed the Recipe , except for the Tomato Sauce (had none) so I used Tomato Puree instead. Really liked it. The Puree made the sauce a little thick , but it worked. Next time I would add a little sauce to the meat rice mixture. Yes I would make this again. Oh I slice a little of the bottom of the pepper off so they stand up in the pan and wont fall over. Also I put small holes in the bottom’s , so the tomato juice gets sucked up inside the pepper to keep it moist while cooking.
We love this dish. My husband questioned the baking time as being extremely long. However, I checked with the meat thermometer and the baking time was exactly correct to get the ground beef in the peppers into the 160 degree “safe zone”.
I made it. I used bacon pieces instead of ham. It was delicious. I definitely will make it again when I have brunch with my family. I gave it 4 stars because my potatoes started to get a little mushy. I know now not to over cook the potatoes.
I made a similar one–just can’t find it on this site. Basic–1 # ground beef, 1/2# ground turkey, 1 cup rice, 2 c. spag. sauce, 3/4 chicken broth (can use water) s & p. Parboil peppers for 2 minutes and brown meat with onion & s & p. Drain grease and add rice and rest of ingredients. Bake 350 for 45 min. covered and then uncover and top with sheddred cheese and bake til cheese melts.
I have made these several times and my family loves them!