Pretty much any food is good when it’s stuffed with something, right?
Yes, indeed!
I think one of the best kinds of food to stuff are bell peppers. Green, red, orange, yellow – it doesn’t really matter what kind of pepper you use – stuff it and cook it and you’ve got yourself a scrumptious entrée or appetizer.
Seriously though, you can stuff bell peppers with just about any kind of ingredient you can imagine and it will be an absolute delight. 🙂
In this post, you're going to learn to make my wickedly delightful chicken and rice stuffed peppers!
For this recipe you’re going to need some fresh red, orange or yellow peppers. Green peppers are super delicious but I find that when using this recipe, the slight sweetness of the red, orange or yellow peppers work perfectly with the savory chunks of chicken breast.
When choosing your peppers at the grocery store, make sure to find some that have a relatively sturdy bottom so they stand up easily when you cook them in the baking dish.
To prepare the peppers you just have to slice the tops off and scoop out the seeds and ribs.
Don’t throw those pepper tops away! You can remove the stems and chop up the pepper tops and put them right in with the filling to cook with the rest of the ingredients. I don’t like to waste anything. 🙂
Set the “pepper cups” (as my son calls them) into it baking dish with a little water in the bottom. Set this aside while the oven preheats and while you work on making your filling.
Now mix up all your filling ingredients according to the recipe instructions at the bottom of the page.
Once your filling is ready, you just have to scoop some into each of the peppers. I recommend filling the peppers up about ¾ full but you can probably get away with over stuffing them a little. 🙂
Nothing wrong with a little extra stuffin’! 😀
once you have your peppers all filled up with that delicious savoury filling, cover your baking dish tightly with some aluminum foil. It’s super important to make sure that the foil is pressed tightly around the edges of the baking dish so that the peppers will cook properly.
Then when the peppers are all finished baking, remove the foil from the baking dish and sprinkle the tops of those delicious looking peppers with some freshly shredded mozzarella cheese.
Pop the peppers back into the oven for about five minutes under the broiler setting so that your cheese melts and starts to get nice and bubbly.
MMmmm MMmmm bubbly cheese!
You can serve these stuffed peppers as an appetizer or even as a side dish depending on the meal you’re planning.
I hope you enjoy this recipe is much my family does and please feel free to use this recipe as a sort of starting point to make your own stuffed bell pepper creations!
If you try any different ingredients for this recipe, I’d love to hear from you so please let me know in the comment section below! 🙂
Find out exactly how I made this recipe below
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Chicken and Rice Stuffed Peppers
- Prep Time: 20 mins
- Cook Time: 60 mins
- Total Time: 1 hour 20 minutes
- Yield: 6 Servings 1x
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Pin RecipeIngredients
- 6 Bell peppers, tops sliced off (see my note about peppers at the bottom of the recipe)
- 3 cups cooked brown rice
- 1 lb, chicken breast, chopped
- 1/2 medium onion, finely chopped
- 1 cup sliced mushrooms
- 1 cup chicken stock
- 1 cup tomato sauce
- 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- 1/2 tbsp Italian seasoning
- 1/4 tsp smoked paprika
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon pepper
- 1 tbsps cooking oil
- 1 cup water
- 1 cup mozzarella, shredded
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375°F.
- Pour 1 cup of water into a 2 quart glass baking dish.
- Into the baking dish, arrange the six bell peppers so that they are standing. The peppers should be sitting in the water. Set the baking dish aside while you prepare the filling.
- In a large frying pan for skillet, heat the cooking oil on medium heat.
- Add the onions and mushrooms to the pan along with the salt. Stir this around and cook for about 5 minutes or until everything is softened in the onions begin to look translucent.
- Add the garlic to the pan and give it a stir to combine with the onions and mushrooms.
- To the pan, add the pepper, smoked paprika and Italian seasoning. Stir to combine well.
- Allow this to cook for five minutes more and then add the chicken to the pan.
- Allow the chicken to cook and brown up in the pan with the other ingredients for about five minutes, while stirring a couple times.
- Next add the chicken stock and the tomato sauce. Combine well with the ingredients of the pan.
- Turn down the heat and add the cooked brown rice to the pan. Stir everything together and allow to simmer and reduce for about 10 minutes.
- Fill each pepper a little more than 3/4 full using the rice and chicken mixture.
- Cover the baking dish tightly with aluminum foil and place into the oven to bake for 45- 60 minutes. Make sure that the foil makes a tight seal so that the peppers cook properly.
- Once the peppers have finished cooking, remove them from the oven and sprinkle mozzarella over each.
- Place the peppers back into the oven uncovered and turn on the broiler setting. Broil for about 5 minutes to melt the cheese. Cheese should bubble up a bit and get a little golden color.
- Enjoy!
Notes
For best results I like to use yellow, orange or red bell peppers with this recipe.
Don’t throw those pepper tops away! You can remove the stems and chop up the pepper tops and put them right in with the filling to cook with the rest of the ingredients.
Make sure that you choose peppers which have a sturdy bottom and will stand up without wobbling too much.
- Category: Entree
